A Canadian senator is asking on Ottawa to be more transparent on its policy to limit arms exports to Israel, following contradictory reports about what manufacturers have been allowed to send to the Middle East.
“I’m horrified to listen to this news about certain arms exports and parts going to Israel, directly or not directly,” Sen. Yuen Pau Woo said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“Civilians are being killed and starved, and the Israeli government has only made things worse.”
Ottawa insists it hasn’t been allowing exports of lethal weapons to Israel and has been blocking any military goods that may very well be utilized in Gaza.
Here’s a take a look at what we all know — and don’t know — about Ottawa’s efforts to maintain Canadian weapons out of Gaza while allowing Israel to import military goods for other purposes.
What’s Canada holding back from Israel?
In March 2024, Parliament voted in favour of a non-binding motion to halt latest arms permits for Israel. The federal government announced a review of export permits and suspended about 30 of them to find out whether or not they involved lethal uses.
Ottawa has allowed all other military export permits for Israel to proceed. There have been 164 such permits used to export military goods to Israel in 2024, and a few of them are valid for years.
Of the 30 suspended permits, some have expired and the remaining remain suspended, says Global Affairs Canada.
In March 2024, the office of then-foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly said that not one of the valid permits allowed for the export of “lethal goods” to Israel, akin to weapons technology and equipment.
Her office also said Canada stopped approving permits for Israel on Jan. 8, 2024, citing human rights concerns.
While Israel’s foreign minister suggested on the time the choice would undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself, Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed said “we are going to have the opportunity to proceed to defend ourselves.”
What’s Canada still allowing into Israel?
Ottawa has said its restrictions exclude “non-lethal” equipment.
The federal government provided Parliament with a listing of all existing permits in June 2024. The list mentions circuit boards well over 100 times.
In September 2024, after the U.S. State Department approved the acquisition of mortar cartridges made in Quebec for Israel, Joly said Canadian-made weapons were prohibited from reaching the Gaza Strip.
“We is not going to have any type of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period,” Joly said on the time. “How they’re being sent and where they’re being sent is irrelevant.”
Anand said in an Aug. 1 statement that this pledge actually goes back to January 2024.
Groups like Project Ploughshares argue the term “non-lethal” is poorly defined and misleading.
Activists say Israel can use Canadian-made components akin to lenses and cameras within the Gaza war and in military campaigns within the West Bank, despite Ottawa saying Israel is violating international law in each theatres.
What does Israeli customs data say?
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In late July, pro-Palestinian activists reported that the Israel Tax Authority had listed publicly imports from Canada that were officially recorded in customs data as bullets, guns and other weapons.
The information suggested 175,000 bullets were sent from Canada to Israel under the customs code that Israel uses for “munitions of war and parts thereof,” with three similar shipments in 2024.
Israeli customs agents recorded one other Canadian shipment within the category of “tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, motorized, whether or not fitted with weapons, and parts of such vehicles.”
It took the Canadian government three days to answer the claims. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand’s office said it took the time “to confirm if any of the intense allegations of wrongdoing were true.”
In her reply, Anand said the report was flawed and its findings “are misleading and significantly misrepresent the facts.”
The bullets were “paintball-style projectiles” that can not be utilized in combat, Anand’s office said.
Sen. Woo called that explanation trivializing and suggested Israel is probably going using those materials to coach its soldiers.
Woo was amongst 32 senators — a 3rd of the Senate — who called for a radical investigation into what’s reaching Israel from Canada. He called Anand’s statement “very limited, slippery and highly defensive.”
“She missed a chance to understand the gravity of the situation in Gaza,” he said.
What about aircraft?
Advocates argue Canadian components are getting used in Israeli fighter jets and drones, citing exports of things akin to circuit boards and scopes or cameras.
The July report noted that specific firms in Israel receiving Canadian imports have also been equipping Israel’s offensive in Gaza. The report pointed to no direct, explicit evidence that Canadian arms had been used on the bottom in Gaza.
Ottawa insists it’s doing all the pieces it could possibly to make sure Canadian components aren’t utilized in Gaza.
What about that parliamentary report?
On Aug. 4, the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council released a report assembled by the Library of Parliament that it said disproves much of what the federal government has claimed.
The July 8 report is marked “to not be published” and the Library of Parliament said in an announcement that it “provides impartial customized research services for individual parliamentarians,” on the premise that the “client’s research request (will) remain confidential.”
The federal government says the report is a rehash of publicly available information that doesn’t contradict what the federal government has said publicly.
Advocates seized on the portion of the report showing two arms permits to send goods to Israel were issued in 2024.
Anand’s office noted the permits were disclosed to Parliament last June and were issued on Jan. 8, 2024, the day Ottawa stopped issuing latest permits.
The advocates also noted that the report cited $2.3 million in Canadian sales to Israel listed as “bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges and related accessories, components and equipment.”
Anand’s spokesman James Fitz-Morris wrote that these were “electronic components for detection equipment” in Israel’s Iron Dome system, which intercepts and destroys incoming rockets.
Did Carney change the Trudeau government’s policy?
While the federal government insists it hasn’t modified policies, its language has shifted.
Joly and her office spoke about non-lethal uses for arms. Anand has avoided that language.
“For a 12 months and a half, we’ve got been clear: if an export permit for an item used to guard civilians is requested, it should be approved,” her office wrote in an announcement this week.
“Canada has not approved the export of any lethal weapons or munitions to Israel since January 2024, and any such permit that would have allowed such items were suspended and stays inactive today.”
Woo said Anand is “prevaricating, with the shift in language and … an effort to attempt to be legalistic in regards to the government’s adherence to its own promise.”
Fitz-Morris wrote that it could be “a disingenuous claim, at best” to suggest Ottawa’s language has been shifting.
“The federal government’s position has not modified. Minister Anand shouldn’t be reading from a script. She uses different words sometimes to convey the identical message or so as to add clarity, depending on the circumstances and what she is responding to,” he wrote.
“The one permits that could be granted are for the items used to defend civilians, akin to the Iron Dome, and items which can be transiting through Israel as a part of the worldwide supply chain akin to items (whose) end-users include Canada and/or NATO allies.”
Why not end all arms exports to Israel?
The federal government says it could compromise the complex supply chains that Canada and its allies depend on if Canada refused to export military goods to Israel, or to import them from that country.
“Any consideration of a two-way arms embargo that might block Israeli-made components from entering Canada would wish to consider the impact that might have on Canada, including the (Canadian Armed Forces),” Fitz-Morris wrote.
Sen. Woo said Anand should halt all military trade with Israel.
“She’s digging a deeper hole for herself and for our government, particularly if there are the truth is legal consequences around complicity, aiding and abetting war crimes,” he said.
“We’re witnessing, within the memorable words of Amnesty International, a live-streamed genocide. It’s tearing at our souls.”
Israel says it’s in an existential war of self-defence and blames Hamas for the high casualty count.
What do Canadians want?
In a web-based survey of 1,522 Canadians conducted by the Angus Reid Institute from July 31 to Aug. 5, 54 per cent said they need Ottawa to make sure Canada shouldn’t be selling lethal military equipment to Israel.
One-fifth of respondents said they need the restrictions dropped. One other 27 per cent said they were unsure or opted not to reply.
Is the federal government being transparent?
“The Government of Canada tables regular reports concerning arms exports and has provided 1000’s of pages of documentation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs — which the committee then published to its website,” Fitz-Morris wrote.
That’s not ok, Woo said. “To play with words, when a genocide is occurring before our very eyes … it’s scandalous,” he said.