A national negotiator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) praised the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas and denied reports that the terror group committed sexual violence.
On the day of the invasion, Hassan Husseini reacted to a social media post by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) that denounced Canadians celebrating the atrocities by responding: “It is called liberation of stolen land, stupid!!!”
Husseini has worked as a PSAC negotiator for more than 12 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He oversees “contract negotiations under all jurisdictions” for the union, and has been involved in organized labour dating back to the 1990s, according to a Quebec community newspaper,
The representative of one of the nation’s largest public sector unions began celebrating the attacks in the early hours of Oct. 7, as the scale of the Hamas massacre was becoming clear.
“Resisting Israeli occupation and apartheid is a right. Unconditional support for the Palestinian resistance movement until full liberation!” he wrote at 1:35 a.m. on X. A follow-up message sent two hours later lauded Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups for their initiative.
“Palestinian resistance mov’t (movement) has demonstrated 2day that Israeli settler colonialism & occupation will not last. Unity of the resistance forces & solidarity is needed now more than ever as a new stage in the war of liberation has begun,” wrote Husseini, who was the Ottawa chapter president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) until 2017.
Husseini elaborated the following day, writing online that the “struggle in Palestine isn’t a humanitarian one, as liberals and some leftists like to think. It is a national liberation struggle with all that entails. This includes not questioning the tools used by the oppressed to achieve their liberation.”
Husseini, who immigrated to Canada at eighteen from Lebanon, and previously served as a leader of the Canadian Communist Party, did not respond to several requests for comment from National Post. David Breault, a PSAC spokesperson, acknowledged receipt of the Post’s inquiry but did not reply afterward.
On Oct. 26, the day before Israel’s full-scale ground operation in Gaza began, Husseini greeted his followers: “Good morning and f–k #Apartheid_Israel and anyone who defends it and attempts to whitewash its #WarCrimes and genocide.”
Chelsea, a PSAC member who requested to use only her first name out of fear of a job reprisal, said that Husseini’s comment made her feel under attack. “I do not feel that he would be able to properly represent me, a Jew and a Zionist. I continue to feel unrepresented by PSAC as they ostracized many Jewish members and created a space in which we do not all feel safe.”
Throughout the coming weeks and months, Husseini compared Israel to Nazi Germany, accused Canadian media of spreading “Zionist propaganda,” and compared Hamas fighters to Jews participating in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a 1943 revolt against Nazi occupation in Poland’s capital.
Another PSAC member, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal, flagged the latter point as particularly disturbing. “There is no question that his posts are antisemitic,” the individual told the Post. They said the comments violate PSAC’s own social media guidelines. “The posts certainly make me feel unsafe and unrepresented. My union is the place where I feel the least safe.”
In May 2024, Husseini shared several posts rejecting accounts that Hamas committed sexual violence during its invasion of Israel. He also retweeted an image of Naama Levy, an Israeli woman taken hostage by Hamas who was recorded with bloody pants, saying the image was part of “Israel’s weaponization of allegations of rape to justify genocide!”
The following day, he shared an article from a Turkish news outlet, writing out its headline – “October 7 ‘rape claims’ debunked as Israeli propaganda unravels” – in a now-deleted series of messages. The post led to an exchange with Post columnist Rahim Mohamed, who challenged Husseini, only for the union leader to double down on the conspiracy.
“You know this is BS propaganda but here you are pandering to Zionist disinformation to justify war crimes against Palestinians,” Husseini posted.
“The posts are absolutely NOT legitimate expressions of political disagreement. The rhetoric is antisemitic and demonstrates Husseini’s hate is more important to him, or stronger than his desire to work as a representative of PSAC,” member Sara Lawlor told the Post in an email. “I feel extremely unrepresented by PSAC and I feel PSAC does not value my safety or well-being.” Lawlor feels that a recent panel discussion hosted by PSAC is further proof of that.
In recent weeks, PSAC came under fire from union members concerned that the labour group was not taking rising levels of antisemitism seriously. A panel discussion organized by PSAC in early June about antisemitism and Islamophobia in the workplace featured a member of Independent Jewish Voices, a group that supported the anti-Israel student encampments and whose leadership has denied Hamas perpetrated sexual violence on Oct. 7.
Union member Valerya Shneider accused PSAC of enabling discriminatory statements. “Since October 7, the union has taken an antisemitic path, which has undermined the diversity of its members. They have already organized anti-Israeli webinars and meetings,” she said. “They did nothing to stop the rising antisemitism; rather, they instigated it by taking sides in foreign political matters.”
PSAC’s decision in November to donate $50,000 from union coffers to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organization which helps Palestinian civilians but has alleged ties to Hamas, and has had its supplies seized by the terror group, angered many workers. In February, over a dozen Jewish members of PSAC filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) that the union enabled a “culture of discrimination and harassment.”
“Unions should focus on their members’ working conditions and benefits, not on divisive, amateurish, simplistic, one-sided, and toxic forays into foreign policy,” Richard Marceau, CIJA’s general counsel and vice president of external affairs, told the Post in a statement. He accused organized labour of turning a blind eye as “anti-Jewish rot” has flourished around them.
“It goes much further than simply Husseini. It is an organized campaign, led and inspired by people like Husseini and Fred Hahn and implemented by activists who are making Jewish union members unwelcome in organizations created to protect every one of their members,” Marceau continued. Hahn is a CUPE Ontario leader who praised the October 7 attacks and supported anti-Israel student encampments. “There are good reasons that some unions are being taken to human rights tribunals for anti-Jewish discrimination. This has to stop,” Marceau said.
Outside of his professional life, Husseini has lectured before Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group with alleged direct links to Hamas, and served as an organizer for Labour4Palestine, an organization that celebrated October 7, calling the atrocities “a new precedent for the Palestinian struggle.”
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