The Trudeau government will cease future arms exports to Israel even though a motion passed Monday by the House of Commons that called for such action is non-binding, says Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.
“It is a real thing,” said Joly, speaking to the Star briefly on the morning after a majority of Liberal MPs and cabinet voted in support of a modified NDP resolution that some Jewish groups say undermines Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.
The controversial multi-pronged resolution sought to toughen Canada’s stance on the Middle East conflict.
“Global Affairs Canada can confirm that Canada has not received any requests, and therefore not issued any permits, for full weapon systems for major conventional arms or light weapons to Israel for over 30 years,” the department told Al Jazeera in an email on Friday.
The categories are admittedly a bit too broad for my liking but most of it seems to be electronics and components, which from what I can tell are not mentioned in this motion.
And even if these permits are also frozen, let’s be realistic here, if Israel needs weapon components they can very easily find another vendor outside of Canada or use middlemen. If Russia can do it so can they.
I gotta say to all the people whining about the free Palestine protesters
THIS IS EXACTLY HOW YOU GET A RESULT
Yes, Canada not selling arms to Israel isn’t going to do much of anything on the ground - but that’s not entirely the point.
The point is, when you know your government is doing something horrible (that they still want to do) protesting the individuals who make up government absolutely has tangible results.
If we want our politicians to actually prioritize healthcare, education, infrastructure, cost of living, national defence, unions, wage gaps, break up monopolies/oligopoly there is only one path.
Take a page out of Palestinian playbook and collectively organize against government officials. Where they live, their meetings, events, their families etc. Protest the politicians existence and go after them in court constantly
Make the individual politicians and their families lives miserable until they act like they give enough of a shit about you that you’re satisfied with their efforts.
Canada is one of the most politically apathetic yet wealthy countries on earth. We collectively let ourselves be robbed and crushed by neoliberalism, and have next to 0 civic comprehension or participation.
The belief that voting or paying attention to politics and government action is useless is blatantly wrong.
Every current problem is a direct result of intentional action by politicians and government policy, and the only way it happens is voter apathy.
We deserve the government we have because we allow them to act unchecked.
The fucking polar bears man… you ever seen a polar bear with a minigun strapped to its back? Fucking terrifying.
Heavily armed polar bears kept us from discovering the northwest passage for centuries - it was always there but those fucking bears kept sinking our ships… and it didn’t help that sailors on a three month trek would run into a polarbear in a vinyl catsuit and be absolutely helpless to resist those dummy thicc polar bear thighs.
It’s very unlikely to happen, but Canada effectively shares a huge border with Russia via the north. It’s not Alaska or bust, and there’s been a decent amount of talk about Arctic security in the last decade or so.
Sure, but Canada’s military isn’t going to make a difference when the worlds most powerful military - , is going to also be fighting Russia in this circumstance… from home soil. This would be an absolute suicidal attack from Russia, which even if they did, would be taken out by the US before we had a chance to do anything. We would have to increase spending to four times of what we do now to even match what Russia spends, let alone what the USA does (that would be what, 37 times what we spend now).
And for what? You think a Russian incursion is going to make it anywhere near American airspace? What exactly is our ‘increased military spending’ going to do, exactly?
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Israel has a very robust and healthy domestic arms industry, this is unlikely to affect anything at all on their end.
“Global Affairs Canada can confirm that Canada has not received any requests, and therefore not issued any permits, for full weapon systems for major conventional arms or light weapons to Israel for over 30 years,” the department told Al Jazeera in an email on Friday.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/9/demands-for-canada-to-stop-supplying-weapons-to-israel-grow-louder
This is virtue signalling and won’t have any meaningful effect on whether Israel continues its genocide against Palestinians
Wait, the papers were just saying the other week they’d been approving shipments of arms to Israel till just recently
Military goods, not arms. Lots of journalists are failing their audiences and equating these 2 when one doesn’t necessarily imply the other.
There’s berm conflicting statements directly attributed to government departments clearly contradicting each other. Who the fuck knows?
this doesn’t read like “none for 30 years” https://www.cjpme.org/ and this mentions 315 export permits https://amnesty.ca/blog/stop-arms-sales-fueling-conflict-in-israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories/
https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/pmc-cgp/quellessont-whatare/grp2-eng.html
https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/controls-controles/military-goods-2022-marchandises-militaires.aspx?lang=eng#a6_7
The categories are admittedly a bit too broad for my liking but most of it seems to be electronics and components, which from what I can tell are not mentioned in this motion.
And even if these permits are also frozen, let’s be realistic here, if Israel needs weapon components they can very easily find another vendor outside of Canada or use middlemen. If Russia can do it so can they.
Maybe they can send some Iron Dome to Gaza to protect the Palestinians from their terrorist neighbors?
Good on the NDP for pushing the point. Despite the resolution itself being very tempered in language, in spirit the bill is functioning as intended.
I gotta say to all the people whining about the free Palestine protesters
THIS IS EXACTLY HOW YOU GET A RESULT
Yes, Canada not selling arms to Israel isn’t going to do much of anything on the ground - but that’s not entirely the point.
The point is, when you know your government is doing something horrible (that they still want to do) protesting the individuals who make up government absolutely has tangible results.
If we want our politicians to actually prioritize healthcare, education, infrastructure, cost of living, national defence, unions, wage gaps, break up monopolies/oligopoly there is only one path.
Take a page out of Palestinian playbook and collectively organize against government officials. Where they live, their meetings, events, their families etc. Protest the politicians existence and go after them in court constantly
Make the individual politicians and their families lives miserable until they act like they give enough of a shit about you that you’re satisfied with their efforts.
Canada is one of the most politically apathetic yet wealthy countries on earth. We collectively let ourselves be robbed and crushed by neoliberalism, and have next to 0 civic comprehension or participation.
The belief that voting or paying attention to politics and government action is useless is blatantly wrong.
Every current problem is a direct result of intentional action by politicians and government policy, and the only way it happens is voter apathy.
We deserve the government we have because we allow them to act unchecked.
Fuckin’ finally
Agreed. Canada needs to bolster its own army instead of always relying on the US. Saving their arms is a good idea.
Bolster our army for what? If Russia invaded it’s through the US anyway, and if the US invades we’re fucked anyway.
There’s more forms of coercion than just annexation by land. Reminder that Canada came from a European invasion in the first place.
The fucking polar bears man… you ever seen a polar bear with a minigun strapped to its back? Fucking terrifying.
Heavily armed polar bears kept us from discovering the northwest passage for centuries - it was always there but those fucking bears kept sinking our ships… and it didn’t help that sailors on a three month trek would run into a polarbear in a vinyl catsuit and be absolutely helpless to resist those dummy thicc polar bear thighs.
It’s very unlikely to happen, but Canada effectively shares a huge border with Russia via the north. It’s not Alaska or bust, and there’s been a decent amount of talk about Arctic security in the last decade or so.
Sure, but Canada’s military isn’t going to make a difference when the worlds most powerful military - , is going to also be fighting Russia in this circumstance… from home soil. This would be an absolute suicidal attack from Russia, which even if they did, would be taken out by the US before we had a chance to do anything. We would have to increase spending to four times of what we do now to even match what Russia spends, let alone what the USA does (that would be what, 37 times what we spend now).
And for what? You think a Russian incursion is going to make it anywhere near American airspace? What exactly is our ‘increased military spending’ going to do, exactly?
As usual the NDP have to be the adults in government.
There’s a reason I’ve voted for them ever since I was voting age.
Hopefully that means more weapons destined to Ukraine.
But hopefully no more standing ovations in Parliament for WW2 Nazis lol