This petition letter was sent to the Canadian Art Therapy Association in November 2025. signed by 85 art therapists, expressive / creative arts therapists, students, and allied professionals. The letter was accompanied by a video presented to the CATA board, showing 15 art therapists and students reading the letter, some also included images of artwork as expressions of solidarity with Palestine. As of April 2026, CATSAG is still in ongoing discussions with CATA about our demands.
We want our voices heard. Listen to a group of art therapists and students reading the letter below.
To the Canadian Art Therapy Association Board of Directors,
We, the collective of undersigned art therapists, students, CATA members, and those who work within/with or support the art therapy profession welcome CATA’s openness to divestment from the Royal Bank of Canada, which we know is currently in progress. This is an important first step in expanding CATA’s capacity to contribute to systemic change for a safer, more equitable world. In this letter, we ask for CATA to continue leaning into its capacity for change and to act in deep and profound alignment with its Vision, Mission, and Values. We have outlined a number of ways that collective voices of CATA members believe CATA can, and must, meaningfully continue their work toward these goals.
Aligning to CATA’s Vision
To be an institution seeking a world where everyone can heal and flourish through connection and creativity, said institution must be staunchly and openly against genocide, colonialism, and oppression everywhere, and in all its forms. Without a clear stance against oppression, we function in support of oppression, and therefore cannot contribute to a healing, connected world. We implore CATA to take seriously the ways understanding and being responsive to oppression and structural and systemic violence are of the utmost necessity as the steward of a healing profession. CATA must therefore ensure that its members are as prepared as possible to safely support their clients by (1) establishing standards which center human rights and anti-oppression, and which keep both clients and therapists safe through a commitment to intersectional solidarity; and (2) integrate necessary career development and training requirements that ensure CATA members are as prepared as possible to have these challenging conversations.
Aligning to CATA’s Mission
As you are well aware, CATA’s stated missions are to “cultivat[e] an inclusive Canadian art therapy community through establishing standards, [and] offering career development to members.” To accomplish its mission, CATA must ongoingly aim to act with absolute integrity, to be accountable to its membership, and to hold its members accountable. CATA must ensure that they can and do hold their members to the basic standard of understanding, valuing, and upholding human rights – and therefore must uphold human rights itself. CATA must also ensure its members are able to support the conversations that clients may need to have about structural oppression with respect, honesty, and a basic understanding that does not place the onus of educating the therapist on the client. CATA cannot compromise the integrity of its foundational values of anti-oppressive practice by seeking to cater to the conflicting values of all its membership, especially on matters pertaining to genocide. CATA should address such matters with clarity and direction, creating and upholding the standard for all membership.
Aligning to CATA’s Standards of Practice
Despite the preamble to CATA’s Standards of Practice (SOP) stating that “Art Therapists respect and protect human and civil rights, and do not knowingly participate in or condone unfair discriminatory practices.” (p.1), CATA’s lack of standards or education around how art therapists should engage with topics of colonialism and genocide effectively makes the professional work of art therapists more difficult and less safe by condoning violence. As members of the art therapy community, we must be dedicated to minimizing harm in all its forms.
We understand that the well-being of Indigenous communities and their healing from intergenerational trauma of colonization and dispossession requires access to land, community, and ancestral traditions that are necessarily land-based. The illegal displacement of Indigenous communities, like the Wet’suwet’en who have never ceded their land to the Crown, Palestinians who continue to resist the illegal occupation of their homeland in the face of a violent genocide, and the destruction of environments driven by corporate greed or relentless bombardment are in direct opposition to this knowledge. We stand against antisemitism, as an interconnected oppression rooted in and enforced by imperialism and white supremacy, and fundamentally connected to anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Arab racism, anti-Asian racism, and all other forms of hate and discrimination that seek to divide and harm our fellow humans. CATA and art therapists must develop an understanding of how colonialism in North America, Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Haiti, Tibet, and anywhere else are overlapping. This shared and global history of violence underpins how our individual and collective wellbeing are connected to us wherever we are, and will be impacted by us and our work, for better or worse.
As therapists, we cannot be “neutral” to systems that amplify hardship for our clients or for people generally. SOP D.5 states that “As employees or employers, Art Therapists do not engage in or condone practices that are inhumane or that result in illegal or unjustifiable actions,” (p.4). In such a deeply interconnected world as ours, we know that people, especially youth, are impacted by man-made traumas no matter where they occur. An inability to take a clear stance on genocide, or to support therapists in supporting their clients with the realities of colonialism, violence and displacement, calls into question CATA’s values, and forces us as members to question CATA’s capacity to steward our profession in a meaningful way that does not simply recreate the harm that we entered the art therapy field to address in the first place.
CATA has a responsibility to make sure art therapists understand social contexts that impact the lives of our clients, and how we are responsible for shaping our practices, research, and the evolution of our professional field in ways that reflect and honor this knowledge. SOP D.4 states that “Art Therapists are concerned with developing regulations pertaining to Art Therapy that serve the public interest, and with deterring such laws and regulations that are not in the public interest” (p.4). As such, art therapists and CATA are required to uphold values of public well-being beyond the dismal standards that our existing colonial systems of governance have determined are appropriate. In terms of career development, we have identified some necessary programming that can begin to support this understanding.
Invitations to Action
We ask CATA to set expectations, and provide the training and resources, for members to:
- Understand the genocide in Palestine by Israel,* the United States, and aided by Canadian military exports;**
- Understand interconnectedness of the genocide of Palestinians with the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island (and genocides in Sudan and around the globe), and CATA’s commitment to work toward decolonization of the field;
- Understand that zionism is a form of white supremacy which falsely claims to represent Judaism, and through this makes the Jewish community less safe;***
- Jewish liberation as defined by the If Not Now Movement means [Jewish] safety does not come at the expense of others, but is bound with the liberation of all people;****
- Understand the common misinformation that helps to manufacture consent for genocide, including the idea that criticism of the Israeli regime is antisemitism (not only does Israel not represent Judaism, Palestinians and Arabs are also Semites);
- Understand the political implications of art therapy practice and that neutrality in the midst of a genocide is a political stance, how “neutrality” perpetuates genocide, and is contrary to CATA’s stated missions/vision/values and standards of practice;
We appreciate that CATA has committed itself to being an anti-oppressive institution, and continues to reevaluate its responsibilities as an organization working toward collective healing. Without question, CATA cannot steward a healing profession without being able to openly acknowledge and take a firm stance against the occupation, genocide, and traumatization of people and land. The ongoing commitment to CATA therapists, and our clients, through the development of explicitly anti-oppressive, anti-colonial, and anti-genocidal standards and career development would demonstrate the Board’s good faith in committing to their stated values.
We welcome further and ongoing conversation with the Board, and are willing to provide a diversity of support and knowledge in order to accomplish these necessary developments in alignment with our collective values.
In hopes of building a safe and stable world,
Signed by:
- 61 Art therapists and art therapy students
- 3 Expressive arts therapists
- 21 Professionals working with art therapists (registered psychotherapists, social workers, educators, advocates)
References:
*UN Human Rights Council (September 16, 2025) – Legal analysis of the conduct of Israel in Gaza pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session60/advance-version/a-hrc-60-crp-3.pdf
**Arms Embargo Now – Exposing Canadian Military Exports to Israel – https://armsembargonow.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Exposing-Canadian-Military-Exports-to-Israel_07292025_compressed-.pdf
***Independent Jewish Voices statement on Zionism; Jewish Voice for Peace: On Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism & Dangerous Conflations and JVP’s Approach to Zionism; discussions about the history and effects of Zionism by historian Norman Finkelstein and Dr. Gabor Maté
****If Not Now – Our Principles – https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/principles
Resources:
TATI Student Divestment Letter
CATSAG message in TATI newsletter (with citations for confirmation of genocide, forced starvation and occupation in Palestine)
TATI updated Policy on Respectful Learning and Workplace Environment, articles 1-3, Statement of Commitment section.
International Federation of Social Workers statement on Palestine – affirmed by Canadian Association of Social Workers, rejected by the Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists
Jewish Psychologists for Justice
Counseling Psychology Advocates in Coalition call to action
Article: The similarities between settler colonialism in Canada and Palestine are unmistakable
Article: No two sides to genocide
Article: APA Rewrites Antisemitism Guidelines to Protect Speech on Palestine