Canada has ignored repeated warnings from UN experts and the World Court on the risk of Israel committing genocide in Gaza, and Canada’s response to developments have even worsened the crisis. In particular, Ministers Joly, Hussen, and Miller have each mismanaged their ministerial portfolio:
- Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has resisted calls for a ceasefire, refused to condemn Israel’s violence against Palestinians and ignored the World Courts finding of a “plausible” genocide in Gaza.
- Thankfully, Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen has restored UNRWA funding. We now expect him to work within cabinet to call for pressuring Israel to allow funding to enter Gaza despite the life-threatening conditions faced by Gaza's civilian population
- Minister of Immigration Marc Miller delayed a program of temporary visas for Gaza relatives of Canadians, and ultimately delivered a racist program with limited spots, and unreasonable application requirements for people in a war zone.
We cannot accept this to be Canada’s legacy amid the genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. If these Ministers are not able to step up in this moment of extreme crisis and redress these errors, they should step aside.
Use the fields below demand that each of these ministers either take immediate action to stop genocide in Gaza, or resign. Your email will be sent to the three ministers and their associated teams.
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Despite the urgency of the unfolding genocide in Gaza, Ministers Joly, Hussen, and Miller have each announced decisions which reflect little regard for Palestinian life or international law, and have shown very little situational awareness concerning the impact of their decisions. By 1) transferring weapons into a genocidal context, and 2) knowingly withdrawing support for Gaza’s humanitarian infrastructure, the actions of Ministers Joly and Hussen directly violate the ICJ’s orders to prevent genocide. Meanwhile, Minister Miller has put up unnecessary barriers that complicate the ability of the loved ones of Canadians to flee a context of genocidal violence.
- Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly - Minister Joly’s failure to respond to the ICJ’s initial ruling on the plausibility of genocide in Gaza demonstrates that Canada is not taking the catastrophic threat to human life seriously. Leading up to the decision, Joly expressed support for the court itself but refused to take a clear position on South Africa’s application, and even appeared to dismiss its “premise.” When asked to clarify her position, Joly responded to inquiries flippantly, as if she and the government purposely intended to be unclear. When the ICJ issued provisional measures ordering Israel to take measures to prevent genocide, Joly’s statement did not express support for the measures nor call upon Israel to comply with the ruling. Rather than recognizing the seriousness of the ICJ’s provisional ruling, her response implied that before taking action, Canada needed to wait until the ICJ’s “final” decision on genocide – something that could take years. This response reflected smug indifference to the killing of Palestinians on a massive scale. Ultimately, Joly’s silence on the ICJ’s orders suggests that Canada has abandoned its commitment to international law, as well as our obligations under the Genocide Convention vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Worse, the government has admitted that it has approved permits for arms exports to Israel since Oct. 7. As such, in her ministerial role, Joly has chosen not to exercise her prerogative to deny arms export permits to Israel during a plausibly genocidal campaign, thus enabling the transfer of military goods to Israel despite the clear risk that they will be used against Palestinian civilians. In a letter to Joly, more than 30 civil society organizations have warned that “Canada cannot at the same time signal support for the ICJ […] while continuing to arm those whom the ICJ has ruled are plausibly accused of genocide."
- International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen - On the same day that the ICJ ruled that Israel must increase humanitarian access to Gaza to prevent genocide, Minister Hussen announced an indefinite suspension of humanitarian aid to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees. This reckless decision was a knee-jerk reaction to unproven Israeli claims about a few of the agency’s employees, collectively punishing the 2 million people in Gaza (and four million other Palestinian refugees) who rely on the agency as a lifeline. Following Canada’s announcement, UNRWA warned that its operations will collapse if its funding is not resumed, and UN bodies and humanitarian aid agencies warned of catastrophe because of this decision.
Thankfully, Hussen has now restored Canadian funding to UNRWA. Now Hussen must work within Cabinet to ensure that Canada pressures Israel to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. Palestinians in Gaza increasingly face starvation, dehydration, malnutrition and the danger of epidemics of communicable disease. Canada's inaction risks leading to mass deaths even after a ceasefire is obtained.
Last week, Hussen suggested that Canada may join allies and try to airdrop aid into Gaza. While any aid is welcome, this solution is woefully inadequate to meet the current humanitarian needs in Gaza. In fact, Canadian talk of "air drops" is a cynical "public relations" campaign. If Canada plans to coordinate air drops into Gaza with Israel, it should have the guts to demand that Israel allow trucks to deliver aid to Gaza. Airdrops can provide only a fraction of the aid needed in Gaza, and provide haphazard delivery to a desperate population. Hussen's job at this point should be to insist that Israel immediately allow ground-based aid delivery to Gaza to resume at pre-Oct. 7 levels.
- Immigration Minister Marc Miller – Despite the massive early death toll of Palestinian civilians, it took Minister Miller over three months to launch a temporary visa program to help Palestinian-Canadian families reunite with loved ones in Gaza. Once opened for applications, the program was found to present huge unnecessary barriers and restrictions which limit its humanitarian potential. The visa program for Gaza is reportedly one of the most restrictive programs of its kind, with an arbitrary cap of 1,000 people causing panic and competition among Palestinian Canadians who are trying to get their loved ones out. Moreover, the application process requires unprecedented levels of personal information, imposing a tremendous and unreasonable burden on displaced people in a war zone. Making this worse, offensive remarks from Minister Miller and his colleagues indicated that these restrictions are motivated by a perception that the loved ones of Palestinian Canadians are an inherent security threat. Ultimately, Miller’s visa program fails to provide the aid and protections necessary to a population facing genocide who have relatives in Canada. The limitations built into this program, and the attitude of Miller and his colleagues have resulted in a program that is entirely out-of-touch with the realities of a genocide, causes unnecessary hardship, and reflects a clear double standard when compared with similar programs assisting other populations
If these Ministers are not able to step up in this moment of extreme crisis and redress these errors, they should step aside.