Canada has been “jolted awake” by new threats to its security and sovereignty, “including from an emboldened Russia and an assertive China,” Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, said in a June 9 speech on defense spending.
“Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine shattered previous assumptions of European post-Cold War security, leading to sharp reappraisals of the costs of collective responsibility and underscoring how precious and precarious are international law, sovereignty, territorial integrity and human rights,” he said.
He then appeared to equate Moscow’s unprovoked war against Ukraine and the Jewish state’s defensive response against the Hamas terror group after its violent attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Disregarding these principles would not only betray our values but also imperil our nation,” Carney said. “When we stand up for territorial integrity, whether it’s in Ukraine or West Bank and Gaza, we are also standing up for the territorial integrity of the Canadian Arctic.”
Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy of B’nai Brith Canada, told JNS that Carney, “by equating Israel’s efforts to nullify the existential threat posed to it by the listed terror entity Hamas with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Canada’s efforts to maintain sovereignty,” has “callously undermined Israel’s right to confront the terrorists seeking its destruction.”
“If the prime minister wishes to ensure the future prosperity of the Palestinian people, he should do everything in his power to aid Israel in its efforts to remove the terrorists responsible for preventing peace in the region,” Robertson said.
“Such comments only serve to embolden those who wish to use the conflict between Israel and Hamas as an excuse to incite hate and sow division,” he told JNS.
Roman Baber, who represents the riding of York Centre in the Canadian House of Commons, wrote that Carney “compares Gaza to Ukraine and Canada.”
“Mark Carney is a radical and dangerous man, who should not be allowed anywhere near the prime minister’s office,” the Jewish parliamentarian stated. “Unreal.”
Linda Frum, a former Canadian senator and former board chair of the UJA Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto, noted that Carney had visited an exhibit about the Nova exhibit, which Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, in Canada the prior day. She stated that she hopes those who accompanied him on his “performative visit” grasped “what an empty sham that was.”
“Those massacred at Nova were victims of an unprovoked territorial attack against innocent civilians inside a sovereign nation,” she stated. “Not that you would know that from this speech.”
The day after Carney’s speech on defense spending, the Canadian government—together with the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom—sanctioned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for allegedly “inciting violence” against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
