Over one hundred Jewish activists and allies took over the lobby of a Global Affairs Canada (GAC) building on Queen Street West in Toronto on Friday, demanding immediate action to address Canada’s support for Israel.
The activists’ message to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and all political parties was that Palestinian rights need to be a focal point in the ongoing federal election.
“We are here today to let our elected officials, Mark Carney, Mélanie Joly and Pierre Poilievre know that they still have blood on their hands [...] The top demand is to stop arming and funding the Israeli war machine,” Gur Tsabar, a spokesperson for Jews Say No to Genocide, told The Maple.
“It is to let them know that Palestine is a federal election issue.”
Demonstrators gathered at the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Garden near the GAC building early on Friday morning. At around 8:30 a.m., the crowd entered the GAC building wearing t-shirts and holding banners that read “Jews for Free Palestine,” “Jews Say No to Genocide” and “Stop Arming Israel.”
They sat in the lobby chanting “arms embargo now” and displayed a banner that read “1,256 Palestinians murdered in Gaza since Mark Carney took office.”
The protesters then exited to Queen Street West to continue their demonstration.
“We are making it a federal election issue where we are going to be there every step of the way when they are campaigning,” said Tsabar.
In March 2024, the Liberal government promised to pause future arms exports to Israel due to concerns about Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.
Despite this, in August 2024, the United States government announced that a Quebec-based company would serve as the primary contractor for a “possible” $83 million high-explosive mortar cartridge sale to Israel.
On Sept. 10, 2024, Joly stated “we will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza,” and said she was in contact with General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD-OTS), the company named in the contract.
However, the arms-monitoring group Project Ploughshares revealed in March that the United States Department of Defence (DOD) website listed the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) as the recipient for a contract in September 2024 to provide the U.S. with artillery propellants, which would ultimately be shipped onward to other destinations, including Israel.
The contract is an amendment of a larger deal for the general supply of artillery propellants to the U.S. military that dates back to 2019 and is valued at a total of $1.79 billion.
CCC, a Crown corporation, signed the contract on behalf of GD-OTS in Valleyfield, Quebec, which is the sole-source supplier of the artillery propellants under contract.
The September contract amendment was signed before Israel and Hamas agreed to a three-phase ceasefire plan in January. But the Israeli government has since refused to move beyond phase one of that plan, and is working to implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza.
It remains uncertain whether or not the Liberal government was aware of the artillery propellant agreement before Project Ploughshares highlighted it.
In response to inquiries from The Maple, GAC stated that the government is in communication with the involved parties. The ministry did not respond to a question about whether or not it was aware of the contract amendment’s existence before Project Ploughshares published its report.
Alex Cosh
Israel’s war on Gaza has so far killed more than 60,000 people and has been denounced as genocidal by a UN special committee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a growing number of genocide studies scholars.
The death toll includes 15 Palestinian medics shot by Israeli troops last month. (Israel walked back its initial account of what happened after video footage proved that its version of events was a lie).
Keeping Up Efforts
“I refuse to let antisemitism be misused and weaponized to say that any objection to Zionism or any just show of solidarity for Palestinians is antisemitic,” Lauren Moses-Brettler, a member of Jews Say No to Genocide, told The Maple.
Moses-Brettler, who led the chanting at the GAC office protest, said she does not want to see Judaism used to defend a genocide.
“Palestinians are human beings that deserve safety and rights, and we are not going to let this stand in our names.”
Protestor Molly Kraft told The Maple that the activist groups will keep up their efforts until Canada ends its complicity in violence against the Palestinian people.
In a press release, Jews Say No to Genocide said:
“As Jewish voters, we are demanding that political leaders act now to end Israel’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza, end support for illegal settlements and endorse the Palestine Platform, a five-point plan for justice and human rights in Palestine.”
The “Palestine Platform” refers to an initiative by the Vote Palestine campaign, which is urging federal election candidates to endorse a two-way arms embargo on Israel, protect freedom of expression on Palestine and combat anti-Palestinian racism, recognize the State of Palestine, end Canadian complicity in illegal Israeli settlements, and properly fund relief efforts in Gaza.
Twelve Liberal Party candidates, including nine incumbents, have so far endorsed the platform.
The same day as the protest at the GAC building, a member of World Beyond War Canada interrupted Carney’s Scarborough campaign rally by asking, “Why are you sending weapons to Israel via the U.S. to kill our families?”
Carney ignored the questions and continued his speech. The protestor said they had tried to email Carney to discuss the matter.
Nur Dogan is a Turkish-Canadian freelance journalist and photojournalist.
