PSAC National President Chris Aylward made the following statement: 

In response to PSAC’s recently announced webinar An introduction to antiracism for White folks, Rebel “News” made and posted a racist and hateful video that attacks our union and one of the webinar’s presenters Nora Loreto, who is an outspoken, high-profile, anti-racist and feminist activist.

The posting of the video, and its circulation by Rebel News followers through social media, generated a viral attack on Nora Loreto’s Twitter feed including racist and sexually violent messages. We strongly condemn Rebel News for inciting a campaign of disinformation with the objective of propagating hate and anti-unionism, and the silencing of those who challenge racism.

PSAC extends our thanks to our webinar presenters, Paige Galette and Nora Loreto, for participating and furthering anti-racism education.

Further, PSAC is outraged by how Rebel News went about making its video.  Rebel’s David “the Menzoid” Menzies sneaked into our Toronto office space that remains quarantined for safety, and peered into PSAC staff work areas to report what books are found on their desks. As a union and an employer we won’t stand for this reckless violation of our employees’ right to safety and privacy in their workplace or our members’ safety in their union office. We will take further measures to avoid this kind of incident in the future and we are exploring ways to hold Rebel News to account.

This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last time that those who wish to maintain the status quo will attack individuals and organizations working to dismantle systemic racism. Far from being deterred, we will continue this important work until we have dismantled racism in all its forms.