Ottawa – Calling a Canadian Senator Ottawa to be more transparent on its policy to restrict arms exports, after contradictory reports that manufacturers have been allowed to be sent to the Middle East.
“I am afraid to hear this news directly or indirectly about some arms exports and some parts going to Israel,” Sen UN Pau Wu said in an interview with Canadian Press.
“Citizens are being killed and kept hungry, and the Israeli government has made only things worse.”
Ottawa insisted that it is not allowing Israel to export fatal weapons and blocks any military goods that can be used in Gaza.
Here’s a look that we know – and don’t know – allowing Israel to import military goods for other purposes about Ottawa’s attempts to keep Canadian weapons out of Gaza.
What is back to Canada from Israel?
In March 2024, Parliament voted in favor of a non-negotiable resolution to prevent new weapons permits for Israel. The government announced a review of export permits and suspended 30 of them to determine whether they are involved in fatal use or not.
Ottawa has allowed all other military export permits to continue Israel. In 2024, there were 164 such permits used to export military goods to Israel, and some of them are valid for years.
Global Affairs Canada says that some of the 30 suspended permits have expired and the rest are suspended.
In March 2024, the office of the then Foreign Affairs Minister Melaney Jolie said that any valid permits were allowed for exporting “deadly goods” to Israel, such as arms technology and equipment.
His office also said that Canada stopped approving permits for Israel on 8 January 2024 citing human rights concerns.
While the Israeli Foreign Minister had suggested that the decision would reduce Israel’s ability to protect itself, Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed said, “We will be able to continue to protect ourselves.”
What is Canada still allowing in Israel?
Ottawa has stated that its restrictions are except for “non-fatal” equipment.
The government provided Parliament in June 2024 with a list of all the existing permits. Circuit boards are mentioned more than a hundred times in this list.
In September 2024, after the US State Department approved the purchase of mortar cartridges made in Quebec for Israel, Jolie said that Canadian-made weapons were banned from reaching the Gaza Strip.
Jolie said at that time, “We will not be sent to the arms or parts of arms or in the period.” “How they are being sent and where they are being sent is irrelevant.”
Anand said in the August 1 statement that the pledge actually went back to January 2024.
Groups such as project plushers argue that the term “non-fatal” is poorly defined and misleading.
Activists say that Israel Gaza may use Canadian-made components such as lenses and cameras in war and in the West Bank military operations, despite that Ottawa said that Israel is violating international law in both theaters.
What does Israeli customs data say?
In late July, Pro-Filistini activists reported that the Israeli tax authority had publicly listed imports from Canada which were officially recorded in customs data as bullets, guns and other weapons.
175,000 pills were sent to Israel from Canada to Israel under Customs Code, which Israel used for “Munis of War and parts” in 2024 with three similar shipments.
Israeli customs agents recorded another Canadian shipment in the category of “tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, motorized, weapons, and parts of such vehicles”.
It took the Canadian government three days to respond to the claims. The office of External Affairs Minister Anita Anand said that “to verify whether any of the serious allegations of wrongdoing was true.”
In his reply, Anand said that the report was flawed and its conclusions are “misleading and are presenting the facts quite incorrectly.”
Anand’s office stated that the bullets were “paintball-style projector”, which could not be used in a combat.
Sen Wu stated that clarification trivial and suggested that Israel is using those materials to train its soldiers.
Wu was one of the 32 senators – a third of the Senate – who called for a thorough examination to reach Israel from Canada. He called Anand’s statement “very limited, slippery and highly protective”.
“She missed the opportunity to understand the gravity of the situation in Gaza,” he said.
What about the aircraft?
Advocates argue that Canadian components are being used in Israeli fighter jets and drones, such as citing export boards and exports such as scope or cameras.
The July report states that specific companies in Israel, which receive Canadian imports, are also equipped with Israel’s aggressive in Gaza. There is no direct, clear evidence in the report that Canadian weapons were used on ground in Gaza.
Ottawa stressed that it is doing all this to ensure that Canadian components have not been used in the gaza.
What about that parliamentary report?
On August 4, the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council released a report gathered by the Library of Parliament, stating that there is a lot of what the government claimed.
The July 8 report is “not to be published” and the Library of Parliament said in a statement that it “provides fairly customized research services to individual MPs,” on the basis that “the customer’s research request (will) will remain confidential.”
The government says that the report is a reconsideration of publicly available information that the government has said publicly, it has not been opposed.
Advocates seized on the part of the report released two arms permits to send goods to Israel in 2024.
Anand’s office noted that the permits were reported to Parliament in the last June and issued on 8 January 2024, the day Ottawa stopped issuing new permits.
Advocates also mentioned that the report cited $ 2.3 million in Canadian sales, listed as “bombs, torpedo, rockets, missiles, other explosive equipment and other explosive equipment and fees and related goods, components and equipment”.
Anand’s spokesman James Fitz-Moris wrote that these were “Electronic Component Detection Equipment” in Israel’s Iron Dome system, which intercept and destroys the upcoming rockets.
Did Carney change the Trudeau government’s policy?
While the government insisted that it has not changed the policies, its language has been transferred.
Jolie and her office talked about non-fatal uses for weapons. Anand has avoided that language.
“For a year and a half, we have become clear: if an export permit is requested for the item to be used for the protection of citizens, it will be approved,” his office has written in a statement this week.
“Canada has not approved the export of any deadly weapons or sages to Israel since January 2024, and any permit that could suspend such items and could be inactive today.”
Wu said that Anand is trying to be legal about the government with changes and … the government is trying to be legal about following the government’s promise. “
Fitz-Moris wrote that it is “best claim, best” to suggest transferring the language of Ottawa.
He said, “The situation of the government has not changed. Minister Anand is not studying with a script. Sometimes he uses different words to express the same message or add clarity, based on the circumstances and what she is responding,” she wrote.
“Only the permit that can be provided is for items used to protect citizens, such as iron domes, and for the items that are transiting as part of the global supply chain through Israel such as items (whose) end-users include Canada and/or NATO collaborative.”
Why was all arms exports not abolished to Israel?
The government says it will compromise with complex supply chains that Canada and its colleagues rely on whether Canada refused to export military goods to Israel, or to import them from that country.
“If the Israeli-produced components considering any idea of two-way weapons will prevent the impact on Canada, taking into account the impact on Canada, including (Canadian armed forces),” Fitz-Moris wrote.
Sen Wu said that Anand should stop all military trade with Israel.
“She is digging a darker hole for himself and for our government, especially if there are really legal consequences around the complexity, warnings and hate the war crimes,” he said.
“We are witnesses, in memorable terms of Amnesty International, a live-world massacre. It is tearing our souls.”
Israel says it is in the existence of self -defense and blames Hamas for high casualties.
What can Canadian want?
In an online survey of 1,522 Canadians organized by the Angus Reid Reed Institute from 31 July to 5 August, 54 percent said that they want Ottawa to ensure that Canada makes ensure that the Canadian is not selling malignant military equipment to Israel.
One-fifth respondents said they want the ban to drop. Another 27 percent said that they were uncertain or opted not to respond.
Is the government transparent?
“The Canadian government has made regular reports related to arms exports and gave a documentation to thousands of pages to the House of Commons Standing Committee-which the committee then published on its website,” Fitz-Moris wrote.
This is not quite good, Wu said. “To play with words, when a genocide is happening before our eyes … it’s condemnable,” he said.
