We Got the Canadian Government to Commit to Stop Approving Arms Exports!

By Rachel Small, World BEYOND War, March 21, 2024

This week has been huge in the campaign for an arms embargo on Israel. Here’s a breakdown of what happened, what we have and haven’t achieved, the roadmap to a real arms embargo, and some key next steps for the Canadian government and our movements.

What happened this week with Canadian weapons exports to Israel?

On Monday, a majority of MPs voted in favour of a non-binding motion that included the demand for Canada to stop exporting arms to Israel (a one-way arms embargo).

Over the next two days, Minister Joly and Global Affairs Canada stated that Canada will follow up on the motion by suspending approval of any further permits for military exports to Israel.

This is a huge departure from Canada’s longstanding support of Israel, and it is a really big deal. Movement pressure successfully pushed the Canadian government to commit to suspending these arms exports.

Once this policy is in place, we will have forced Canada to take a truly historic step for a G7 country and major ally of Israel. This news is already prompting outrage from the pro-Israel lobby and making waves internationally.

This is a big deal, but it is not yet an arms embargo.

While the Canadian government is promising to stop approving any more arms permits to Israel, they have not committed to actually stopping the transport of arms for those permits that have previously been approved. Any suspension that excludes the record-breaking number of arms approvals for Israel that our government pushed through in October-December makes a mockery of our collective demand for an arms embargo.

These are the steps the government now needs to take — and that we are going to organize and mobilize to make sure they take — to enact a full, real arms embargo on Israel.

This progress would never have happened without the powerful and escalating grassroots organizing across the country demanding an arms embargo. But this is not the time to declare victory and move on — quite the opposite.

It is a critical moment to ramp up the pressure in order to make this real and actually stop the flow of all military goods to and from Israel. Take action today!

• Contact your Members of Parliament, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, and Defense Minister Bill Blair to demand that they make an arms embargo real
• Join or plan actions at arms manufacturers to stop the flow of weapons
• Stay tuned to hear about next steps as we try to get more clarity about the government’s response. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for daily updates and ways to get involved

For a bit of a bigger breakdown of what’s happened over the past few days and what it all means, watch this 15 minute interview I did with journalist Desmond Cole yesterday.