I rarely appeal directly to my platform, but I am going to do it now. On August 24, Montréal City Council will vote on a motion asking the City to recognize and denounce an “apartheid regime,” declare that a “genocide” is being perpetrated, and suspend ties with the Israeli government, its institutions and municipalities. There has been enormous mobilization in support of it. I have spent a considerable amount of my own time over the past few weeks reading the motion, the relevant laws and case law, and the international law decisions it invokes, on top of a Big Law practice that currently has me working close to 80 hours a week. I don’t say that for sympathy. I say it because I rarely ask the people who follow me to actually do something. I am asking now. Municipalities exercise delegated powers. Those powers are broad. They are not unlimited. In Shell Canada v. Vancouver, Vancouver adopted resolutions refusing to do business with Shell until it withdrew from South Africa. The Supreme Court struck them down. Yes, municipal law evolved after Shell. In Spraytech v. Hudson, the Court emphasized that municipal powers should be interpreted generously. But the bylaw upheld there regulated pesticide use within Hudson, for the health and welfare of its residents. That was an exercise of delegated municipal power, not foreign policy. But the potential ultra vires nature of the motion is not the only problem. The motion asks City Council to adopt contested international law conclusions as settled fact. The ICJ has made no determination on the merits that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. And in its 2024 advisory opinion, while finding that certain policies of separation violated Article 3 of CERD, the Court did not itself characterize that separation as apartheid. Yet Montréal is being asked to do both. And what exactly does an “institutional rupture” mean when imposed by a city? A municipality acts through contracts, procurement, grants, partnerships, cultural and scientific collaborations and relationships with other public institutions. If “Israeli institutions” is left undefined, how far does that exclusion extend? A university? A researcher? An artist? A supplier? That is not an abstract concern. If these declarations are later used to exclude people or institutions because of their connection to Israel, that may also engage Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, including its protections against discrimination based on religion, political convictions and ethnic or national origin. This is not merely a symbolic resolution. It risks institutionalizing, through the machinery of municipal government, a distinction based on connection to one particular country. And we need to talk about which foreign state is being singled out. Montréal’s Jewish community has been particularly vulnerable to the explosion of antisemitism of the last several years. Jewish schools and synagogues in this city have been targeted. In 2025, Jews were the targets of over 70% of police-reported hate crimes motivated by religion in Canada. And now, against that backdrop, our municipal government is being asked to make the world’s only Jewish state the object of an official institutional rupture. The motion says Montréal’s Jews cannot be held responsible for Israel while simultaneously asking the City to institutionalize the singling out of Israel. I cannot separate those two realities. I am doing my part to the extent that I can. But lawyers cannot manufacture public opposition where people remain silent. So this is my ask: share this post. Share it outside the Jewish community. Share it with Montrealers who may have no idea this vote is happening. Share it with people who may disagree with me about Israel but believe that municipal government has limits, and that our public institutions should not single people out because of their connection to one country. And if you live here, make yourself heard before August 24.