Canada’s rules on restricting arms exports to Israel explained

by Dylan Robertson

OTTAWA — A Canadian senator is calling on Ottawa to be more transparent on its policy to restrict arms exports to Israel, following contradictory reports about what manufacturers have been allowed to send to the Middle East.

“I’m horrified to hear this news about certain arms exports and parts going to Israel, directly or indirectly,” Sen. Yuen Pau Woo said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Read more:

• Canada joins international partners to condemn Israel plan to take over Gaza City
• Desperate, hungry Palestinians compete in hazardous scramble for food
• Prime Minister Carney says Canada will recognize a Palestinian state
• Canada pledges $30M in Gaza aid, $10M for Palestinian Authority work toward statehood

“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 could be used in Gaza.

Here’s a look at what we know — and don’t know — about Ottawa’s efforts to keep Canadian weapons out of Gaza while allowing Israel to import military goods for other purposes.

What is Canada holding back from Israel?

In March 2024, Parliament voted in favour of a non-binding motion to halt new arms permits for Israel. The government announced a review of export permits and suspended about 30 of them to determine whether they involved lethal uses.

Ottawa has allowed all other military export permits for Israel to continue. There were 164 such permits used to export military goods to Israel in 2024, and some of them are valid for years.

Of the 30 suspended permits, some have expired and the rest remain suspended, says Global Affairs Canada.

In March 2024, the office of then-foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly said that none of the valid permits allowed for the export of “lethal goods” to Israel, such as 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 at the time the decision would undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself, Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed said “we will be able to continue to defend ourselves.”

What is Canada still allowing into Israel?

Ottawa has said its restrictions exclude “non-lethal” equipment.

The government provided Parliament with a list of all existing permits in June 2024. The list mentions circuit boards well over a hundred times.

In September 2024, after the U.S. State Department approved the purchase of mortar cartridges made in Quebec for Israel, Joly said Canadian-made weapons were prohibited from reaching the Gaza Strip.

“We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period,” Joly said at 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 such as lenses and cameras in the Gaza war and in military campaigns in the West Bank, despite Ottawa saying Israel is violating international law in both theatres.

What does Israeli customs data say?

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 data 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 another Canadian shipment in 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 respond to the claims. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand’s office said it took the time “to verify if any of the serious 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 cannot be used in combat, Anand’s office said.

Sen. Woo called that explanation trivializing and suggested Israel is likely using those materials to train its soldiers.

Woo was among 32 senators — a third of the Senate — who called for a thorough investigation into what’s reaching Israel from Canada. He called Anand’s statement “very limited, slippery and highly defensive.”

“She missed an opportunity to grasp the gravity of the situation in Gaza,” he said.

What about aircraft?

Advocates argue Canadian components are being used in Israeli fighter jets and drones, citing exports of items such as circuit boards and scopes or cameras.

The July report noted that specific companies 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 ground in Gaza.

Ottawa insists it is doing everything it can to ensure Canadian components aren’t used 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 government has claimed.

The July 8 report is marked “not to be published” and the Library of Parliament said in a statement that it “provides impartial customized research services for individual parliamentarians,” on the basis that the “client’s research request (will) remain confidential.”

The government says the report is a rehash of publicly available information that doesn’t contradict what the 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 new 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 government policy?

While the government insists it hasn’t changed policies, its language has shifted.

Joly and her office spoke about non-lethal uses for arms. Anand has avoided that language.

“For a year and a half, we have been clear: if an export permit for an item used to protect civilians is requested, it will be approved,” her office wrote in a statement this week.

“Canada has not approved the export of any lethal weapons or munitions to Israel since January 2024, and any such permit that could have allowed such items were suspended and remains inactive today.”

Woo said Anand is “prevaricating, with the shift in language and … an effort to try to be legalistic about the government’s adherence to its own promise.”

Fitz-Morris wrote that it would be “a disingenuous claim, at best” to suggest Ottawa’s language has been shifting.

“The government’s position has not changed. Minister Anand is not reading from a script. She uses different words sometimes to convey the same message or to add clarity, depending on the circumstances and what she is responding to,” he wrote.

“The only permits that may be granted are for the items used to defend civilians, such as the Iron Dome, and items that are transiting through Israel as part of the global supply chain such as items (whose) end-users include Canada and/or NATO allies.”

Why not end all arms exports to Israel?

The government says it would compromise the complex supply chains that Canada and its allies rely 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 would block Israeli-made components from entering Canada would need to take into consideration the impact that would 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 in fact legal consequences around complicity, aiding and abetting war crimes,” he said.

“We are witnessing, in 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.

In an online survey of 1,522 Canadians conducted by the Angus Reid Institute from July 31 to Aug. 5, 54 per cent said they want Ottawa to ensure Canada is not selling lethal military equipment to Israel.

One-fifth of respondents said they want the restrictions dropped. Another 27 per cent said they were unsure or opted not to respond.

Is the government being transparent?

“The Government of Canada tables regular reports concerning arms exports and has provided thousands 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 good enough, Woo said. “To play with words, when a genocide is happening before our very eyes … it’s scandalous,” he said.

Read more:

• Canada joins international partners to condemn Israel plan to take over Gaza City
• Desperate, hungry Palestinians compete in hazardous scramble for food
• Prime Minister Carney says Canada will recognize a Palestinian state
• Canada pledges $30M in Gaza aid, $10M for Palestinian Authority work toward statehood