Canada is Latest Western Ally to Suspend Arms Exports to Israel

Canadian and Israeli officials meet (Wikimedia Commons) 

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced on September 10 that Canada suspended 30 arms exports to Israel’s Defense Military (IDF), during the summer, stating that Canada had barred all arms exports to Israel since January 8, according to CBC. Her statement on the deliberate pause of Canadian arms exports to Israel at the September 8 Liberal Caucus contrasts the United States’ consistent support for the IDF in the Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. Congress approved a $13.4 billion emergency relief package for Israel in August 2024 and $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, according to the American Jewish Committee. Israel continues to be the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since 1948, reports the Council on Foreign Relations.

Joly said at a Liberal caucus retreat on September 10 that Canada does not allow export permits to Israel  – although she did not disclose the type of arms exports that Canadian manufacturers have been sending to Israel, writes the Maple. According to Le Monde, Joly reaffirmed her statement from March 2024, when she said Canada paused its arms exportation to Israel on January 8. “First and foremost, our policy has been clear since January 8. We and I have not accepted any form of arms export permits to be sent to Israel,” Joly stated. 

David Morrison, deputy minister of GAC, wrote to his committee members that Canada has declined the sale of arms to Israel—specifically, any weapons that can be used for conventional warfare.

"Canada has not issued any permits for items destined to Israel for major conventional arms or light weapons… since 1991 (the earliest year for which the Department has records)," Morrison wrote, according to CBC.

A July 3 document showed that Canada allocated $154.8 million for funding the IDF, approving $24 million of that allocation after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed, according to CSIS, approximately 1,200 Israeli citizens, reports CBC. A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada declined to comment on Canada’s provision of Canadian-made arms to Israel. Canadian civil rights activists have condemned the Trudeau administration for the lack of information on Canada’s arms exports to Israel.

“Inexplicably, Canada has yet to denounce Israel’s indiscriminate air strikes on and full blockade of the Gaza Strip and the forced displacement of more than one million civilians,” Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, Ketty Nivyabandi, wrote in an open letter to President Justin Trudeau. 
While Canada’s alliance with Israel strengthened in 1997 with the formation of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA), which reduced tariffs between Israel and Canada, the Maple says that the IDF’s continued humanitarian violence against Palestinian civilians has put Canada’s relationship with Israel under scrutiny.