Dylan Robertson
Mon, September 23, 2024
OTTAWA — The NDP is urging the Liberals to recognize Palestinian statehood, warning that a Conservative government would not protect international law in the Middle East.
"If we go to an election within weeks or months, and if there is a Conservative government, this will not happen," NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson said Monday.
In response Monday afternoon, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said now is not the right time for Canada to take such a step.
But McPherson accused the Liberals of lacking "moral courage and political will" to do more to promote the Trudeau government's stated goal of advancing a two-state solution, where Israel and a Palestinian country exist peacefully.
McPherson says Canada ought to recognize Palestinian statehood before any snap election. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been leading in the polls for months, and the Tories are putting forward a non-confidence motion this week in an effort to bring down the minority government. McPherson argued the Conservatives have been uncritically supportive of Israel.
"We have heard from Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives that they have no interest in international law, they have no interest in protecting the rights of Palestinians," she said.
Tory foreign affairs critic Michael Chong wrote in a statement that Israel is defending itself against terrorism by Hamas and Hezbollah.
"Conservatives recognize that Israel is a democratic state defending itself in a fight between democracy and rising authoritarianism," he wrote. "There is no question which side Canada should be on."
When asked Monday what conditions Canada needs in order to recognize Palestinian statehood, Joly said that is still being defined.
"We need to make sure that we recognize the Palestinian state at the right time," she said, noting that Hamas still rules Gaza and is holding Israeli hostages, while the Netanyahu government opposes a two-state solution.
"We are working with our like-minded countries to make sure that we identify what are the conditions for (the) right time," she told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The NDP is also seeking a two-way arms embargo, where Canada would go beyond barring new arms permits and actually block all military trade, including goods arriving from Israel.
The Liberals have restricted weapons sales by halting new permits and pausing some that were already in place. But the U.S. government has proposed buying Canadian arms and sending them to Israel, which Joly has said she is looking into.
The NDP also wants Canada to go beyond sanctioning certain settlers in the West Bank and impose a ban on at least far-right ministers in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. McPherson said two had uttered "genocidal language against the Palestinian people."
Ottawa condemned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last month for suggesting it would be justified to starve Palestinians, and he previously said the Palestinian village of Huwara should be erased.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is part of a Jewish supremacist party, has called on Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip and have Israelis settle the territory, which has prompted accusations of ethnic cleansing.
McPherson noted the government could act on her three proposals without a vote in Parliament or a parliamentary study.
Canada's ambassador to the UN said Ottawa is trying to help end the conflict in Gaza while preventing more violence in Lebanon.
Israeli strikes on Monday killed more than 270 people in Lebanon and wounded a thousand others as part of a campaign the Israeli government says is meant to stop Hezbollah militants from ongoing rocket attacks that have caused the evacuation of large swaths of northern Israel.
"This escalation is deplorable," Bob Rae told reporters in New York. "We have a humanitarian disaster going on in Gaza and we don't want another one."
Canada recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist group, and McPherson said the rocket attacks need to stop.
She also says international law is being violated, including in pager explosions that killed Hezbollah militants as well as civilians and children. The attacks are widely believed to have been done by Israel.
McPherson would not say whether she believes the "indiscriminate" pager attack is an act of terrorism when asked twice on Monday.
"We know that Hezbollah is a listed terrorist entity, but the (Israeli) government is breaking international law when they are using indiscriminate weapons and the people of Lebanon are suffering," she said.
Rae, when asked whether he agrees with those calling the incident terrorism, said he would not "get into the business of name-calling."
He said Israel must think "more consequentially about what's happening, less impulsively" but that militants must stop firing rockets at Israel.
"We need to get to a situation where Iran stops playing footsie with Hamas and Hezbollah, pushing them to do things that need to stop," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2024.
— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in New York and Nojoud Al Mallees.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
Commons committee to debate motion on quickest path to Palestinian statehood
Mon, September 23, 2024
OTTAWA — The NDP is urging the Liberals to recognize Palestinian statehood, warning that a Conservative government would not protect international law in the Middle East.
"If we go to an election within weeks or months, and if there is a Conservative government, this will not happen," NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson said Monday.
In response Monday afternoon, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said now is not the right time for Canada to take such a step.
But McPherson accused the Liberals of lacking "moral courage and political will" to do more to promote the Trudeau government's stated goal of advancing a two-state solution, where Israel and a Palestinian country exist peacefully.
McPherson says Canada ought to recognize Palestinian statehood before any snap election. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been leading in the polls for months, and the Tories are putting forward a non-confidence motion this week in an effort to bring down the minority government. McPherson argued the Conservatives have been uncritically supportive of Israel.
"We have heard from Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives that they have no interest in international law, they have no interest in protecting the rights of Palestinians," she said.
Tory foreign affairs critic Michael Chong wrote in a statement that Israel is defending itself against terrorism by Hamas and Hezbollah.
"Conservatives recognize that Israel is a democratic state defending itself in a fight between democracy and rising authoritarianism," he wrote. "There is no question which side Canada should be on."
When asked Monday what conditions Canada needs in order to recognize Palestinian statehood, Joly said that is still being defined.
"We need to make sure that we recognize the Palestinian state at the right time," she said, noting that Hamas still rules Gaza and is holding Israeli hostages, while the Netanyahu government opposes a two-state solution.
"We are working with our like-minded countries to make sure that we identify what are the conditions for (the) right time," she told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The NDP is also seeking a two-way arms embargo, where Canada would go beyond barring new arms permits and actually block all military trade, including goods arriving from Israel.
The Liberals have restricted weapons sales by halting new permits and pausing some that were already in place. But the U.S. government has proposed buying Canadian arms and sending them to Israel, which Joly has said she is looking into.
The NDP also wants Canada to go beyond sanctioning certain settlers in the West Bank and impose a ban on at least far-right ministers in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. McPherson said two had uttered "genocidal language against the Palestinian people."
Ottawa condemned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last month for suggesting it would be justified to starve Palestinians, and he previously said the Palestinian village of Huwara should be erased.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is part of a Jewish supremacist party, has called on Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip and have Israelis settle the territory, which has prompted accusations of ethnic cleansing.
McPherson noted the government could act on her three proposals without a vote in Parliament or a parliamentary study.
Canada's ambassador to the UN said Ottawa is trying to help end the conflict in Gaza while preventing more violence in Lebanon.
Israeli strikes on Monday killed more than 270 people in Lebanon and wounded a thousand others as part of a campaign the Israeli government says is meant to stop Hezbollah militants from ongoing rocket attacks that have caused the evacuation of large swaths of northern Israel.
"This escalation is deplorable," Bob Rae told reporters in New York. "We have a humanitarian disaster going on in Gaza and we don't want another one."
Canada recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist group, and McPherson said the rocket attacks need to stop.
She also says international law is being violated, including in pager explosions that killed Hezbollah militants as well as civilians and children. The attacks are widely believed to have been done by Israel.
McPherson would not say whether she believes the "indiscriminate" pager attack is an act of terrorism when asked twice on Monday.
"We know that Hezbollah is a listed terrorist entity, but the (Israeli) government is breaking international law when they are using indiscriminate weapons and the people of Lebanon are suffering," she said.
Rae, when asked whether he agrees with those calling the incident terrorism, said he would not "get into the business of name-calling."
He said Israel must think "more consequentially about what's happening, less impulsively" but that militants must stop firing rockets at Israel.
"We need to get to a situation where Iran stops playing footsie with Hamas and Hezbollah, pushing them to do things that need to stop," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2024.
— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in New York and Nojoud Al Mallees.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
Commons committee to debate motion on quickest path to Palestinian statehood
CBC
Tue, September 24, 2024
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City on September 22, 2024. Members of his caucus are presenting a motion to study the quickest path for the Canadian government to recognize Palestinian statehood. (REUTERS - image credit)
MPs on the House of Commons foreign affairs committee are expected to resume a contentious debate later this morning on the quickest path for Canada to recognize a Palestinian state.
The text of the motion — first presented to a closed-doors session of the committee last Thursday by Liberal MPs — asks committee members to dedicate four sessions to studying the matter, sources told CBC News last week.
CBC News agreed not to identify the sources as they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
The sources said last week that the Liberal MPs had secured support for the motion from the committee's NDP and Bloc Québécois members, but were prevented from putting the matter to a vote by Conservative MPs.
CBC News sought comment from committee members from multiple parties. They refused, citing the confidentiality of in-camera sessions.
NDP says no time left for debate
The NDP has been urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to immediately recognize a Palestinian state.
"We are at a very dangerous moment in time for this. This is not a time when we need to have a study, this is not a time where we need to have further discussions," NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson told journalists at a news conference on Monday.
Deputy Whip of the NDP, Heather McPherson, speaks to reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Monday, March 18, 2024. Her party is urging the federal government to immediately recognize a Palestinian state.
NDP MP Heather McPherson is urging the federal government to immediately recognize a Palestinian state. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)
She said the Liberals could lose their chance to recognize a state of Palestine if they wait too long and are defeated in the next election by the Opposition Conservatives.
The House of Commons did pass a watered-down NDP motion last March that called on the government to work for "the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution." The motion was supported by almost the entire Liberal caucus, while the Conservatives voted against it.
McPherson initiated that motion, which in its original form called on Canada to immediately recognize a Palestinian state. She has another motion on notice in the House of Commons that also calls for immediate recognition.
As a member of the foreign affairs committee, McPherson was privy to the in-camera discussions that took place last Thursday. She told reporters she would not answer questions about those discussions.
"Hopefully, there will be a vote that is public coming soon, but I can't comment on anything that's happened in camera and no members of that committee should have," she said.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's military since war erupted in October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing around 1,139 people and taking hundreds hostage.
A Palestinian man inspects the damage to a school sheltering displaced people after it was hit by an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, September 22, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian man inspects the damage to a school sheltering displaced people after it was hit by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on September 22, 2024. (REUTERS)
Shimon Koffler Fogel, president and CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, called the motion going before the committee this morning "ill-advised."
"I fear that it is more about politics and political theatre than it is about offering a meaningful contribution that is going to advance peace in the region," he said.
Fogel argued immediate recognition of a Palestinian state by Canada would reward Hamas and its allies "for an unconscionable attack on Israelis, unprovoked, almost a year ago on October 7. And it sends a message to all of those who would opt for terrorism, as opposed to negotiation, as the route towards achieving their political aims."
Stephen Brown, president and CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, disagreed. He said Canada should move toward recognition of statehood as quickly as possible in the interests of peace.
"There are millions of people that have the right to self-determination, that want to be able to live in peace," he said. "And if we believe as Canadians that the best way to achieve peace in the Middle East is a two-state solution ... what we should be doing is prioritizing peace, and doing whatever we can to move toward peace."
The Canadian government was one of 25 countries to abstain from a United Nations General Assembly vote last May granting new "rights and privileges" to Palestinian representatives, and calling on the Security Council to reconsider their request to have a Palestinian state recognized by the UN.
That vote marked a shift in Canada's posture at the UN; it has tended simply to vote against similar UN motions.
Prime Minister Trudeau said back in May that he disagreed with Israel shutting the door on a two-state solution, and also criticized Hamas for putting civilian lives in danger.
Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaks to reporters at the United Nations headquarters on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Joly says the Canadian government no longer believes a negotiated two-state solution is possible.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly speaks to reporters at the United Nations headquarters on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
"There is no possibility of a negotiated outcome," Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told journalists at a news conference on Monday.
"So we reserve the right to make sure that we can recognize a Palestinian state at the right time, and that is why we're working with our like-minded countries to make sure that we can identify what are the conditions for this right time."
Tue, September 24, 2024
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City on September 22, 2024. Members of his caucus are presenting a motion to study the quickest path for the Canadian government to recognize Palestinian statehood. (REUTERS - image credit)
MPs on the House of Commons foreign affairs committee are expected to resume a contentious debate later this morning on the quickest path for Canada to recognize a Palestinian state.
The text of the motion — first presented to a closed-doors session of the committee last Thursday by Liberal MPs — asks committee members to dedicate four sessions to studying the matter, sources told CBC News last week.
CBC News agreed not to identify the sources as they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
The sources said last week that the Liberal MPs had secured support for the motion from the committee's NDP and Bloc Québécois members, but were prevented from putting the matter to a vote by Conservative MPs.
CBC News sought comment from committee members from multiple parties. They refused, citing the confidentiality of in-camera sessions.
NDP says no time left for debate
The NDP has been urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to immediately recognize a Palestinian state.
"We are at a very dangerous moment in time for this. This is not a time when we need to have a study, this is not a time where we need to have further discussions," NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson told journalists at a news conference on Monday.
Deputy Whip of the NDP, Heather McPherson, speaks to reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Monday, March 18, 2024. Her party is urging the federal government to immediately recognize a Palestinian state.
NDP MP Heather McPherson is urging the federal government to immediately recognize a Palestinian state. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)
She said the Liberals could lose their chance to recognize a state of Palestine if they wait too long and are defeated in the next election by the Opposition Conservatives.
The House of Commons did pass a watered-down NDP motion last March that called on the government to work for "the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution." The motion was supported by almost the entire Liberal caucus, while the Conservatives voted against it.
McPherson initiated that motion, which in its original form called on Canada to immediately recognize a Palestinian state. She has another motion on notice in the House of Commons that also calls for immediate recognition.
As a member of the foreign affairs committee, McPherson was privy to the in-camera discussions that took place last Thursday. She told reporters she would not answer questions about those discussions.
"Hopefully, there will be a vote that is public coming soon, but I can't comment on anything that's happened in camera and no members of that committee should have," she said.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's military since war erupted in October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing around 1,139 people and taking hundreds hostage.
A Palestinian man inspects the damage to a school sheltering displaced people after it was hit by an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, September 22, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian man inspects the damage to a school sheltering displaced people after it was hit by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on September 22, 2024. (REUTERS)
Shimon Koffler Fogel, president and CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, called the motion going before the committee this morning "ill-advised."
"I fear that it is more about politics and political theatre than it is about offering a meaningful contribution that is going to advance peace in the region," he said.
Fogel argued immediate recognition of a Palestinian state by Canada would reward Hamas and its allies "for an unconscionable attack on Israelis, unprovoked, almost a year ago on October 7. And it sends a message to all of those who would opt for terrorism, as opposed to negotiation, as the route towards achieving their political aims."
Stephen Brown, president and CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, disagreed. He said Canada should move toward recognition of statehood as quickly as possible in the interests of peace.
"There are millions of people that have the right to self-determination, that want to be able to live in peace," he said. "And if we believe as Canadians that the best way to achieve peace in the Middle East is a two-state solution ... what we should be doing is prioritizing peace, and doing whatever we can to move toward peace."
The Canadian government was one of 25 countries to abstain from a United Nations General Assembly vote last May granting new "rights and privileges" to Palestinian representatives, and calling on the Security Council to reconsider their request to have a Palestinian state recognized by the UN.
That vote marked a shift in Canada's posture at the UN; it has tended simply to vote against similar UN motions.
Prime Minister Trudeau said back in May that he disagreed with Israel shutting the door on a two-state solution, and also criticized Hamas for putting civilian lives in danger.
Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaks to reporters at the United Nations headquarters on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Joly says the Canadian government no longer believes a negotiated two-state solution is possible.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly speaks to reporters at the United Nations headquarters on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
"There is no possibility of a negotiated outcome," Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told journalists at a news conference on Monday.
"So we reserve the right to make sure that we can recognize a Palestinian state at the right time, and that is why we're working with our like-minded countries to make sure that we can identify what are the conditions for this right time."
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