Pro-Palestinian protesters call out Canadian arms transfers to Israel

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Parliament Hill Saturday, accusing the federal government of backtracking on its pledge to halt arms transfers to Israel and urging politicians to make foreign policy a central issue in the election campaign.

Shatha Mahmoud an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) said Canadian companies supplying military components — even indirectly — are enabling Israel.

"We are continuing to send weapons, if not straight to Israel, then via the U.S. where the majority of these weapons get to Gaza," she said.

Protesters mobilized on Saturday after peace research institute Project Ploughshares released a report saying that Canada approved a new $55-million US permit for ammunition to the U.S. from Quebec-based General Dynamics (GD-OTS-Canada) even though the federal government had committed to stop all arms from reaching Israel.

Buses were planned to bring protesters to the capital from across Ontario.

"We do not want to see our tax dollars and our politicians endorsing this slaughter," Mahmoud said, adding that she hoped foreign policy would become a central election of the federal election on April 28. 

Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials. The Israeli government says it has acted in self-defence and rejects accusations of genocide, saying they amount to libel. 

Protesters say Ottawa's actions don't match promises

On Sept. 10, 2024, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Canada would bar Canadian-made arms from reaching Gaza and later that month reaffirmed that Canadian-made arms would not be exported to Israel and that arms made for the U.S. would not be sent along to Israel.

But 16 days after Joly's initial commitment, more money was approved for the U.S. to buy ammunition for Israel from GD-OTS-Canada, according to contract details on USAspending, an official open data source.

The site shows that on Sept. 26, 2024 a 2023 contract was modified to increase its upper limit by just over $55 million US (around $76 million Cdn).

The original contract was to supply the U.S. with ammunition to be used "in support of Ukraine," but the modification in September changes the language to "in support of Ukraine & Israel."

In a Monday email, a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson said Canada suspended "a number of export permits for military items destined to Israel in 2024."

"While Global Affairs Canada does not comment on the specifics of transactions due to commercial confidentiality, any items requiring an export permit adhere to Canada's rigorous export permit regime," the statement read.

'Hate marches'

The morning before the protest, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was in Ottawa on the campaign trail and was asked about pro-Palestinian demonstrations in general and the use of the word "genocide" by a Liberal incumbent MP. 

Poilievre said some pro-Palestinian protests have made Jewish Canadians feel unsafe and that the Liberal party has encouraged division.

"The Jewish community feels understandably under siege as these hate marches and antisemitic outbursts have become an unfortunate part of Canadian life," he told reporters.

This kind of narrative misrepresents what the protests are about, according to Zev Saltiel, a member of Independent Jewish Voices in Montreal who attended Saturday's demonstration.

"As a Jewish person who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors — my grandfather, having been born in Palestine during World War Two — I think it's imperative that we show up and denounce the ongoing genocide that is being committed in our name," he said.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney has said he's "aware of the situation in Gaza," and "that's why [Canada has] an arms embargo" in place. He has stopped short of calling the situation a genocide, though he did clarify remarks he made to someone in the crowd at Calgary rally last week who used the term.

"This question is in front of the International Court of Justice," Carney said in a statement last week. "The situation is a horrible situation. I will not, and I will never politicize that word or this situation."