Arming Israel: Canada's Continued Role
Representatives for the Arms Embargo Now campaign have released a scathing report that shows Canada has been actively arming Israel as recently as July 2025.
Haneen from the Palestinian Youth Movement and Rachel from World Beyond War, share details included in the report, including what kind of weapons we're sending, where they're going exactly and the routes these shipments are taking.
They also provide an inside look into their methodology, their motivations and what they'd like to see happen as a result - namely a "political crisis" for the Canadian government.
With this information, the activists behind the report will be helping to mobilize folks, including (hopefully) elements in Labour that have close connections to these weapons.
Hosted by: Jessa McLean
Call to Action: REGISTER FOR URGENT MOVEMENT MEETING
Related Episodes:
- Disrupting Canada's Arms Trade, with Rachel from World Beyond War
- Return and Liberation, a discussion with the Palestinian Youth Movement from October 2022.
- Vote Palestine! Organizers behind this campaign explain their approach to the 2024 Canadian Federal Election.
More Resources:
- The Maple: What Mélanie Joly Said And Didn’t Say About Israel Arms Exports
- Learn more about Arms Embargo Now
- Times of Israel: Canada to Halt Arms Exports (March 2024)
- CBC: Joly Stand on Non Binding Motion
- READ the Report - Arms Embargo Now
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support our work through monthly contributions: Patreon
Transcript
Welcome to another episode of Blueprints of Destruction, a podcast that is dedicated to
Speaker:amplifying the work of grassroots movements and motivating people to take action themselves.
Speaker:This week's episode is a great example of that. Just moments ago on July 29th, 2025, representatives
Speaker:from the Arms Embargo Now movement held a press conference in Ottawa to announce the findings
Speaker:of a report which contradicts The federal government has been saying about Canada's role in supplying
Speaker:arms to the genocidal occupation forces. You likely won't be all that surprised, but you
Speaker:will be enraged when you hear how much and how recently we've been sending lethal weaponry
Speaker:over, all while our politicians pretend to condemn the violent outcomes they create. It
Speaker:isn't just hypocrisy. This is outright lying and it's just the tip of the iceberg. Rachel
Speaker:and Hanin are here to talk about exactly what's in the report, what it took to bring it to
Speaker:light, and what they plan on doing with this information. Well, more accurately, what you
Speaker:can do with this information. They make it clear that this is your report to run with. We've
Speaker:included plenty of links in the show notes to get you started. Most importantly, There's
Speaker:a link to register for a urgent movement meeting this week and other ways you can plug right
Speaker:into this campaign to secure an actual arms embargo. For now, sit and listen and then
Speaker:get organized. Good morning. Can you please introduce yourself starting with Hanin, please?
Speaker:Hi, Jessa. My name is Hanin. I'm from the Palestinian Youth Movement. And for those who don't know
Speaker:the PYM is the independent grassroots group that's led by young Palestinians and Arab across
Speaker:the world, especially those living in exile due to the ongoing Israeli occupation and
Speaker:colonization. And just to give a really, really quick background on what PYM does, we work
Speaker:to mobilize and empower Palestinian youth through community organizing, sorry, organizing political
Speaker:education, leadership building, cultural work. So yeah, in a few lines, this is who we are.
Speaker:Hi, great to be back on this podcast. My name is Rachel Small. I'm the Canada lead with World
Speaker:Beyond War. We're a global grassroots org taking on the military industrial complex, literally
Speaker:trying to abolish war. Here across so-called Canada, we work really in solidarity with
Speaker:people all around the world who are facing the blunt end of war, who are... in Gaza facing
Speaker:Israeli machine guns, but also in Sudan, in Congo, in Ukraine. Our work over the past
Speaker:21 months has been very focused on untangling the Canada-Israel arms trade. We recognized
Speaker:a real lack of information in terms of government transparency, but also in terms of other research
Speaker:to really trace Canada's role in arming Israel's genocide. And so that's been one of our key
Speaker:focuses over the past... two years, I mean, and extending before that as well. One of
Speaker:your key focuses, my chuckle was just, you already, the plate sounds so full. I mean,
Speaker:you started with, we're trying to stop all war and, you know, plus, you know, here's how
Speaker:we're doing it. Both of your organizations have your hands full. I, we already know what's
Speaker:brought you together. Both your organizations have been on the show before, so I will link.
Speaker:those ones that focused on what both of these organizations do, how they're made up, their
Speaker:origin stories and whatnot, because they are intriguing. However, I have, I'm lucky actually
Speaker:to have them both in the studio to talk about the most recent report that they are putting
Speaker:out together. And I think folks are going to be shocked. I mean, I don't know how we can
Speaker:continue to be shocked. But when it comes to Canada being complicit in the genocide, it's
Speaker:a bit of a gray area, right? We're told one thing, we hear whispers of another, but you're
Speaker:here to kind of lay it straight. Can you maybe, let's just kind of get it out. Let's hear
Speaker:what you found out and then we'll find out how you found all of this out and what we're gonna
Speaker:do about it. So essentially, The main goal of this report is actually to call out the
Speaker:discrepancies between what Canada has been saying publicly versus what's actually happening
Speaker:on the ground. The Canadian government clearly said that stopping military transfers to Israel.
Speaker:An example is back in September 2024, then Foreign Minister Mélanie Joeddy said that
Speaker:we will not have any form of arms or parts of arms sent to Gaza, period. You can't forget
Speaker:the period. exactly. And what our researchers were able to find, tell the different story
Speaker:of actually what's happening. So essentially, the report is going to be talking about military
Speaker:related shipments that are still happening, still ongoing since October 2023 until this
Speaker:very last week. I got only a little peek at some of There's a lot more, Yeah, I imagine...
Speaker:Rachel, mentioned spending maybe thousands of hours on this collectively. And like I said,
Speaker:I've got a little tidbit and that enraged me. You know, I'm looking through my notes and
Speaker:it's things like half a million bullets. And I imagine the images that we've seen like instantly
Speaker:in my mind. Like I feel such this visceral responsibility knowing that, and that's just
Speaker:a tidbit of what you've unveiled. you let Jolie off the hook a little bit because she follows
Speaker:with, you know, definitely period, nothing. And I don't care how they're being sent and
Speaker:where they're being sent is irrelevant, you know, so no loopholes, she's going to shut
Speaker:it down. And they did anything but yeah, so how let's see, how many arms are we sending
Speaker:to the occupation forces? Millions, actually, millions and millions worth of arms that are
Speaker:being sent. And we were able to actually find, so in the report, we're going to be talking
Speaker:about two different methodologies of how we found these shipments. So the first one is
Speaker:going to be really around actual shipping records. so shipping receipts that show that military
Speaker:components are leaving Canadian ports, Canadian airports bound for the Zionist entity. Actually,
Speaker:the majority of what we found is going to Ovid Systems, which is Israel's largest weapons
Speaker:manufacturer in Israel. Because that's my first question, right? How do you get receipts? You're
Speaker:talking really receipts. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, it's basically just shipping records that
Speaker:were made available to our researchers. So this is where we've been able to gather these
Speaker:receipts. So the second methodology is really about information that we found online on
Speaker:the Israeli Tax Authority website, which essentially it's like a government website that deals with
Speaker:custom taxes, imports, exports. So basically, I guess we can compare it to Canada Revenue
Speaker:Agency. So it's part of the Israeli Minister of Finance and one of its jobs is to track
Speaker:records, everything that enters the country, including military goods. So we've been able
Speaker:to go on the website. and actually extract everything leaving from Canada to Israel from 2023 to
Speaker:2025. And one of the highlights that we've been able to gather is that since August alone,
Speaker:August 2023, has shipped over 10 million bullets to Israel. And if we're talking about purely
Speaker:2025, we have nearly half a million bullets sent. And just to... you know, make it even
Speaker:crazier is that in April alone, just this, this April 2025, we've sent 175,000 worth of bullets
Speaker:to design this entity. So those are all public information that we've been able to, you know,
Speaker:anyone can go on the website, extract the information and you can see clearly that these are military
Speaker:goods. And the way we're able to, prove that these are military goods is because they're
Speaker:all classified with a HS code, which is a harmonized system code. And this is also a classification
Speaker:that Canada uses as well. So in the report, you're going to see like, okay, 93 is going
Speaker:to be weapons, bombs, grenades, for example. And as you go into details, it'll be more specific
Speaker:to what the actual shipment is. So we've been able to track a few of them that are literally
Speaker:bullets being sent. did they ever think they would get away with such public facing statements?
Speaker:You mentioned Jolie, but Carney repeatedly also has said, absolutely not. I mean, bullets
Speaker:are weapons, right? Like there's, you know, components, that whole argument. Rachel, you
Speaker:were on before and talked about how they tried to walk around the idea that it was just like
Speaker:components for drones and that doesn't make us so bad. And, you know, without all the
Speaker:other parts, know, everyone else is doing it. They'd have to put it together, but these are
Speaker:bullets. And you've been able to find the information. with relatively limited resources. Why isn't
Speaker:the Canadian media picked up on this themselves considering this has been a topic of discussion?
Speaker:Those politicians have been pushed many times. I'm mad. I can hear my voice cracking. Many
Speaker:times on whether or not we are still sending, right? They have heckled protesters who have
Speaker:disrupted events, yelling over them, we have an embargo. just placating the liberals in
Speaker:Canada, mean, liberal voters, they're just trying to get them to forget about it, right? Like,
Speaker:just forget about it. Don't worry, we stopped anything that we're responsible for. Any theories
Speaker:here on how they thought they would hide this? And I guess that's tied into my like, isn't
Speaker:the media picking up on this? Why did you folks have to dig this up? Honestly, I don't know
Speaker:if they know that this is actually like if the Israeli tax authority data actually has this
Speaker:type of information. to quite honest. So that's my personal opinion on that matter. They're
Speaker:going to be surprised. Yeah, because honestly, I've, you know, it's actually, we went through
Speaker:it, me and Rachel, it's not the easiest data to go through. You know, it's not just, you
Speaker:know, you go on a page and it's all beautifully laid out for you. So it's, you're still doing
Speaker:some digging and finding that data on the website. So I, yeah, I just don't think it's very publicized.
Speaker:And people just, I guess, wouldn't expect it to be so public, right? I we also were surprised
Speaker:to even be able to get our hands on this kind of data. I mean, yeah, so the Israeli import
Speaker:data is publicly available. But what's publicly available is like literally millions of lines
Speaker:of spreadsheet data documenting all the exports to all the imports to Israel from all countries
Speaker:around the world of every product from like. bananas to screws to bombs to toys to so it's
Speaker:it's an enormous amount of work to parse through that data and find anything meaningful and
Speaker:especially to pull out specifically military exports from Canada to Israel which are not
Speaker:conveniently labeled like hey these are the military exports you're looking for. It'll
Speaker:color-code it for you. No and it's in Hebrew so the Israeli a lot of it is in Hebrew so
Speaker:a lot of the Israeli data is publicly available data but data that takes hundreds of hours
Speaker:of parsing through to find this information. But I think broader what we're talking here
Speaker:that this data is showing to speak kind of to your question, Jessa, is that like since October
Speaker:2023, like as Israel's genocide became more obvious, as movement pressure built, as pressure
Speaker:built between with lawsuits, with international legal mechanisms, even within parliament, the
Speaker:Canadian government really just began to like systematically obfuscate, misrepresent, and
Speaker:sometimes fully lie about the nature of Canada's arms trade relationship with Israel, right?
Speaker:And that, like you said, has looked like different things every month. It has been a new thing
Speaker:from them every month. They've tried to downplay the lethality. of these goods or like you're
Speaker:saying that's like, oh, these are just components as though like the part of a fighter jet that
Speaker:bonds people is like not lethal only the entire jet as a whole is lethal. Like it was, was
Speaker:kind of obviously nonsense, but that was one angle. Another angle is that they made huge
Speaker:hay out of their announcement that we have paused issuing any new export permits to Israel. They
Speaker:said this over and over and over. They passed a bill. Am I crazy? They add a motion, a non-binding
Speaker:motion, was passed by parliament and they said they would respect it and then they sort of
Speaker:made this big deal announcement. We're not issuing any new export permits to Israel, which I should
Speaker:say was a significant thing to do. Made the Israeli government extremely mad, made international
Speaker:headlines around the world. It was an important step we forced them to do. And it's good that
Speaker:they stopped issuing any new permits, but what they conveniently failed to mention is that
Speaker:they had just approved hundreds of new permits in the first three months of the genocide.
Speaker:Right before their January pause, December, November, October, they were busy pushing through
Speaker:tons of approvals and those permits that had already been approved, they didn't cancel those,
Speaker:right? So what this report really shows is, hey, those permits that we've been calling
Speaker:you out on, for over a year that you didn't cancel before your big pause, we now see what
Speaker:those permits allowed for. And they allowed for just this constant shipment of military
Speaker:goods unending up to this week from Canada to Israel. And it is everything from fighter jet
Speaker:parts, communications tools, electronic warfare systems, to ammunition and cartridges and bullets.
Speaker:It's extremely damning. data that's in this report. And I mean, it really shows the lengths
Speaker:the Canadian government went to conceal Canada's role in Israel's genocide in Gaza. And really,
Speaker:you can pick any government statement, I think, about the arms exports to Israel over the past
Speaker:21 months. And I think this report would debunk it. Even for me, who was one of the folks
Speaker:who founded the Arms and Margo Now campaign a year ago and has been coordinating it since.
Speaker:who knows that the Canadian government has been lying about these arms exports and we've been
Speaker:sharing with the public and with our communities, like, hey, they're not telling the truth about
Speaker:it. Even for me, this report was shocking. I did not expect to see more than nearly half
Speaker:a million bullets exported, bullets from Canada to Israel since October 2023. I did not expect
Speaker:to see... F-35 parts going directly from Canada to Israel. We thought they were all going via
Speaker:the US. And I should really point out that this, the data in this report is a snapshot.
Speaker:We make no claims that we caught all the shipments. We know we didn't. We know that what we caught
Speaker:was a snapshot. We caught, like Hamin said, 47 detailed shipping records. So those are
Speaker:like commercial shipping records that say, X package. left this factory on this date and
Speaker:went to, not just Israel, like went to this Elbit facility in Tel Aviv on this date. So
Speaker:we've got 47 of those really detailed receipts. There are hundreds of shipments. We only got
Speaker:47. So we will never say this is the full picture. But what this snapshot shows is damning and
Speaker:shows that the Canadian government's been lying. Makes you wonder what else we don't know, right?
Speaker:You know about the loopholes to the US or other states that eventually end up in Israel. You
Speaker:know you probably missed some line items amongst these millions of records. And then there's
Speaker:like, what don't we know? What doesn't have a tax trail? Do you think the Canadian military
Speaker:is aiding the Israeli army in a way that they're not being forthright about? Are they, are
Speaker:all of these shipments commercial shipments? Meaning going through commercial routes? So
Speaker:that's, yeah, that's a really, really good question is that I think we've been able to identify
Speaker:nearly 100 international flights between those 47 shipments that we found. about 64, believe,
Speaker:or about 60 of them are commercial passenger, like commercially passenger air flights. So
Speaker:that means that military cargo was literally loaded beneath every traveler, on their families,
Speaker:on their students, know, on the people just going, trying to get from one place to another.
Speaker:You know, so, and honestly, that really makes me sick because it just shows how invisible
Speaker:this kind of violence can be. It's hidden in plain sight. So yeah, to answer your question,
Speaker:most of them are commercial aircrafts. Airline, sorry. So just to underline that point, like
Speaker:one shipment that we found shows F-35 fighter jet parts. flying on an Air Canada flight from
Speaker:Halifax to Toronto and then Toronto to Frankfurt. So these are flights with like people in Canada
Speaker:getting on a plane to fly to Germany and turns out under their seats were literal parts of
Speaker:F-35 fighter jets going directly to Elbit in Israel. Yeah, I think it speaks for itself.
Speaker:It's invisible, but it's also so normalized in that way. Like it's just part of like the
Speaker:mail, right? Like it's just part of regular everyday business in Canada is shipping arms
Speaker:to an illegal occupation. I do want to answer your question about the military connections
Speaker:though, because I think that's a really important question. So I mean, there's no doubt that
Speaker:I mean, obviously the relationship between Canada and Israel is very different from the relationship
Speaker:between US and Israel. So unlike the US where in addition to selling mountains of weapons
Speaker:to Israel, the US military is also just constantly donating. For lack of a, I mean, there's many
Speaker:words they use. Military aid is like literally just donating their equipment and their military
Speaker:technology and supplies. They're so generous. To Israel. To the best of our knowledge,
Speaker:Canada is not doing that, though they have been doing that to Ukraine. And I think the reason
Speaker:Canada is not doing that is because of the pressure from our movements. Which is not to say that
Speaker:what they have been doing is not bad, but truly I think it could be much worse. And I think
Speaker:it's a testament to our organizing. Organizing of many, frankly hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker:across the country. that has stopped them from taking a more blatantly active role in
Speaker:arming Israel. And the Canadian government has a number of times said, oh, we're not sending
Speaker:weapons to Israel. They're from Canadian companies, which I don't think is an excuse that has landed
Speaker:with anybody at all. But what they're referring to is that the Canadian government is not gifting
Speaker:weapons to Israel. They're just selling Canadian weapons to Israel. That said, there are other
Speaker:types of partnerships that are a real problem. Don't worry, we're making a profit. But there's
Speaker:other types of partnerships that are a real problem and that we don't know enough about.
Speaker:Like Canada, for example, has the Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership, which they have not
Speaker:suspended, and which includes a commitment to share military intelligence for military cooperation
Speaker:and work together for joint training exercises for intelligence coordination. Like that's
Speaker:a partnership that the Canadian military still has with the Israeli military. We also have
Speaker:seen Israeli weapons and technology systems being tested on Canadian bases, as in Israeli
Speaker:weapons companies have been welcomed into these training sessions on Canadian bases where new
Speaker:technology gets to be tried out by the military. So there's a whole bunch of levels of partnership
Speaker:between the Canadian military and the Israeli military beyond just the export of weapons.
Speaker:But this is a really big piece. It's huge. It's huge. it's, you keep mentioning, like it seems
Speaker:heinous to think of it operating like that, like a business, but that's exactly what it
Speaker:is, right? Yeah. It is just a business that, well, cause when we're trying to, well, there's
Speaker:lots of reasons Canada is propping up a genocide with our own history and all the roles that
Speaker:we play, but Yeah, it's just, it's also a business. There's profits to be made and cutting off
Speaker:those profits is sometimes one of the hardest things to do. However, you know the ports
Speaker:and the airports these shipments are leaving from now. That's always handy. We're always
Speaker:looking for pressure points. A lot of those workers in those areas tend to be in unions
Speaker:loading aircraft and preparing. the ports for shipments and whatnot. I think to, what
Speaker:else can we do with this information as well as shaming the politicians? What are you going
Speaker:to do with this report? So we do have a rollout plan. haven't touched, I mean, I think we're
Speaker:working on labor on this side. Maybe Rachel, you can talk more about that. But we do plan
Speaker:on having press conference, we're going to have town halls, we'll have direct actions,
Speaker:and all of that will come right after the report. the community will be able to do something,
Speaker:they won't just be angry in their own homes, but they'll be able to actually go out in
Speaker:the streets and protest. So one of the actions that we would want to take is maybe mobilizing
Speaker:at General Dynamics because in those 47 shipments that were talking about, there are three shipments
Speaker:that went out, one in September 2024, one in May 2025, and one just, you know, a week, less
Speaker:than a week ago. And those are all shipments of cartridges that, you know, we have bills
Speaker:of ladings for cartridges leaving General Dynamics, from Repentini, going directly to the Zionist
Speaker:state. So this, think, is going to cause outrage, for sure. I'm mad. Yeah. No. What are the
Speaker:other... You mentioned general dynamics. Sometimes people are really shocked to learn. I know
Speaker:when we did Rachel's episode, we included like this kind of interactive map that you had put
Speaker:together. People are shocked that some of these companies are right next to them in smaller
Speaker:communities sometimes, or some of these ports are nearer to them than they think. Like everything
Speaker:seems so out of reach for us. we're watching it through the screen, but then you find out,
Speaker:you know, weapons manufacturer is actually just a 30 minute drive from you. I mean, there's
Speaker:lots of people can do with that information, but what are the other companies that were
Speaker:prominent in the receipts? I just first say for those listening to this podcast right away,
Speaker:this Thursday, July 31st, we're holding a big urgent movement briefing. And that is where
Speaker:we'll be sharing this report in detail with our movements, with our people, and going through
Speaker:what it means, and also showing these maps that show where are the shipments that we identified
Speaker:coming from, but also what does the broader web look like of companies that we know across
Speaker:Canada are arming Israel. We've got some maps of the routes that are being taken on these
Speaker:flights as well. So that will be really a chance for people across the country to dig in. at
Speaker:the bigger picture, but also locally. Like, what does this complicity look like? Like you
Speaker:said, right in my backyard. And on that call, we'll also be emphasizing what I said earlier,
Speaker:which is, look, these 47 specific shimmins that we found, unfortunately, this is not the picture
Speaker:of all the complicit companies. These are the ones we happened to spot, and they include
Speaker:some major companies like General Dynamics, like CAE, like Pratt & Whitney, and they include
Speaker:some local. like mom and pop electrical shops in the greater Toronto area that frankly a
Speaker:majority of their business is probably not to do with the weapons industry, but here they
Speaker:are exporting some key components to Elbit Systems. But these 47 shipments, again, just a snapshot
Speaker:and they don't show. the full picture that we've uncovered in other ways of what are all
Speaker:the other companies in Canada that we know are arming Israel and that we know are exporting
Speaker:weapons, even if we didn't manage to grab the literal shipping receipt on a particular day.
Speaker:But I'll let Hanin jump in on some of the other kind of companies that are featured here.
Speaker:Yeah, so we've named seven major major cities that are shipping. these military components.
Speaker:So we have Montreal, we have Halifax, Calgary, Vancouver, the GTA, Waterloo and Ottawa.
Speaker:And, you know, Rachel mentioned a few of them like CAE, there's Tilia, there's Nexia, there's
Speaker:InnerCorp. You have the little companies that she was talking about, like AM rubber and foam
Speaker:and foam gaskets. So it's like little component. that are, you know, are being sent. And but
Speaker:honestly, whatever it may be, whether it's a sheet or insulation or whatever it is, it's
Speaker:still part of, you know, the, you know, the broad, the broader military, maybe jets, you
Speaker:know, or drones. So every little detail is, you know, is a Canadian company supporting
Speaker:the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But yeah, even CMC, Pratt & Whitney, those are those are
Speaker:pretty huge. So there's a lot of companies that were named actually in those 47 shipments.
Speaker:You're to be able to see the companies where it's coming from, where it's going to in Israel.
Speaker:And like we've said before, the majority of them are going to go to Elbit system. So this
Speaker:is a clear indicator that these are going to the largest weapons manufacturer in Israel.
Speaker:You're going to see when they're leaving exactly, when they're arriving, what airlines, the
Speaker:airline flights. So it's going to be extremely detailed and very, hard for the government
Speaker:to deny any of this because one of the columns that you're going to see in those tables is
Speaker:the goods description. So you're going to see military aircraft, you're going to see antennas,
Speaker:sensors, all components that are what makes these, for example, these jets operate and
Speaker:take off safely and be able to target to be able to have those sensors. So yeah, we're
Speaker:going to be doing a very deep dive into what these components are and how they're being
Speaker:used. So we mentioned a study case around the F-35. And for those who don't know, but I
Speaker:think the majority of people know, but since October, 2023, Israel has been carrying out
Speaker:what we can call a genocide from the sky. At the center of this campaign is the F-35
Speaker:fighter jet, which can carry over, I think it was nine tons of bombs, is enough to,
Speaker:I guess enough firepower to wipe out entire neighborhoods. And that's what they've been
Speaker:doing, wiping out neighborhoods, refugee camps, homes, hospitals, and even so-called safe
Speaker:zone. So in that section of the case study, we're going to talk about how Canadian companies
Speaker:are deeply tied to this weapons of mass destruction, which was the F-35. And even when you go on
Speaker:Lockheed Martin's website, they boast about the fact that $2.3 million worth of Canadian-made
Speaker:parts are put into these fighter jets. And amongst these companies, we're going to be
Speaker:naming NexSci Canada, which are shipping a device which is called a a modular product
Speaker:tester. And essentially what it is, is that it helps test all electrical components of
Speaker:the system of the F-35. So that way it's clear for action. So in other words, it makes sure
Speaker:that every bomb drops, every bomb dropped and missile strike goes as planned. So that's
Speaker:one of the companies that we're naming in the case study and that we have shipping data
Speaker:on. Another one is going to be CMIC Electronics. which send what we call dobs for navigation
Speaker:sensors. And this essentially gives a jet ultra precise guidance, which is the cruel irony
Speaker:is that despite being called precision, this has killed over 60,000 Palestinians since October
Speaker:2023. And then lastly, we're going to talk about Stelia in more depth because Stelia has contracts.
Speaker:with Elbit in order to build these components and parts that are actually going on the
Speaker:F-35's body. So yeah, so essentially without these, the jet can't fly off the ground. So
Speaker:it just shows how every single, you know, how Canadian companies are complicit. And we're
Speaker:choosing three amongst the ones that have shipped, you know, weapon components to Israel. I
Speaker:would imagine some of the smaller companies might be easier to lean on as well. They wouldn't
Speaker:like this kind of exposure for selling, you even even these tiny non-lethal components
Speaker:that you've laid out are actually quite lethal in themselves. But it gives me hope to hear
Speaker:that sometimes these little bits have huge implications, meaning you don't necessarily have to stop
Speaker:the whole plane, uh, everyone doing their part bit by bit, you know, making it even more difficult
Speaker:to fly each and every run makes a difference, right? Because you're not, this isn't isolated
Speaker:to Canada. There are activists in all the Western nations kind of putting these pressures on.
Speaker:We've seen Palestinian action in the UK, damage facilities and successfully damaged drones
Speaker:there, know, doing their bit by bit. yeah, no hearing that sometimes it is the mom and
Speaker:pop. I go, well, surely. Surely even like a successful TikTok campaign would perhaps shut
Speaker:some of these folks down or at least get them to change the way that they do business. I
Speaker:mean, it's also maddening, though, to think that the big guys, I don't know, you're kind
Speaker:of like, yeah, evil. But how small folks couldn't turn down a little bit of profit to not fund
Speaker:a genocide, I don't think I could understand. I mean, I don't understand the other guys anyway,
Speaker:but I thought I. it would be a deterrent even just with political distaste. know, forget
Speaker:maybe you don't have morals, you don't care about people on the other side of the earth
Speaker:for whatever reason. But why would you step into this madness and fund this if you weren't
Speaker:100 % sure that you weren't contributing to a genocide? I mean, I had a restaurant down
Speaker:the street had Israeli couscous on their takeout menu and I was like, next, like, no. Like
Speaker:you don't have to list that in this day and age like are you kidding me? That's a seasonal
Speaker:menu I will never go there again. Like what are you doing? How can you not take like the
Speaker:smallest little stand at this point? But you know, that's them Our real anger really should
Speaker:be the Canadian government, right? They're supposed to be mediating this Unhinged capitalism, but
Speaker:we elected a banker but that banker just said I mean, this is as far as they've really gone,
Speaker:I think, in language calling Israel's actions, he means the denial of aid, not the bombing,
Speaker:or they have 35s, a violation of international law. So already they have obligations to not
Speaker:be sending weapons to Israel, right? Because they've been ruling after ruling, they are
Speaker:actively contributing to something they're obligated to stop. But now they themselves,
Speaker:are calling what Israel's doing a violation of international law. And even if we're just
Speaker:talking about cartridges and bullets, surely that's part of that denial. Yeah. Can I jump
Speaker:in though as well on those other really two key pressure points that you mentioned earlier
Speaker:that we didn't get to talk about? So one was labor and unions. And I'd love to just jump
Speaker:in on that because I think it's a really key point. So as you mentioned, yeah, now that
Speaker:we have some specific information about some of the factories that have been doing, from
Speaker:which some of these shipments are leaving to Israel and also the methods of transport, it
Speaker:does highlight the role of workers, most of which are not unionized, some of which are.
Speaker:And I mean, one thing that's been really, that I've really enjoyed about working on the
Speaker:Arms and Margo Now campaign is that a number of the biggest unions in the country are signatories
Speaker:and have been allies in this. and are demanding an arms embargo, mostly public sector unions,
Speaker:although interestingly, including CAPE, which unionizes the workers who approve the weapons
Speaker:permits or work on the weapons permits. Federal workers, you mean? Yes. Yeah. But also, you
Speaker:know, there's a whole bunch of unions that are part of it. But notably, I mean, a bunch
Speaker:of these factories are are Unifor factories, are Unifor shops where the weapons identified
Speaker:the shipments in this in this report. or identified, I mean, Unifor just, I think it was a month
Speaker:ago, finally put out frankly a really powerful statement demanding an arms embargo on Israel.
Speaker:So I see this as a really important opportunity for Unifor to step up and to continue to step
Speaker:up and say, look, we called for an arms embargo a month ago. Now we see that some of our Unifor
Speaker:shops are directly implicated in some of these shipments. And we as workers have real power
Speaker:here to stop these shipments, to take a stand. I see it as a real opportunity for Unifor
Speaker:in that case to match its strong words with real action on the ground. But frankly also,
Speaker:as you mentioned, there are workers across the transportation lines. So this report does
Speaker:reveal, as Hanin mentioned, many, many, many commercial flights on many different airlines
Speaker:leaving all the main airports in the country. So there's the airport workers, the airline
Speaker:workers, but then also there's shipments by rail on CN Rail leaving out of the port in
Speaker:Halifax. So these are other spaces of intervention for workers. And of course, many on trucks
Speaker:going on Canadian highways. So I think there are like a lot of points of intervention, which
Speaker:I'm excited about. But then the other thing is once these flights leave Canada, many of
Speaker:them are being trans-shipped, or trans-shipment is what's called through Europe and through
Speaker:other cities around the world. But I mention Europe specifically because the EU has quite
Speaker:strict requirements on what needs to be declared if you're shipping weapons through European
Speaker:airports, or in fact, even flying it over EU airspace. And I was just speaking last week
Speaker:with an activist from Belgium where just a couple weeks ago they had an incredible court
Speaker:victory where a regional court declared that no weapons to Israel could go through a port
Speaker:in Belgium. And what they didn't have at the time, those activists, is evidence that weapons
Speaker:were also going through Belgian airports. So what they're hoping is that this is just kind
Speaker:of one offshoot from this report, but they're hoping that the evidence we've shown that there's
Speaker:weapons that fly through the airport in Liège that that will be what they need to be able
Speaker:to get a ban on these weapons also flying through Belgian airports. we really, I mean, the weapons
Speaker:industry and the flow of weapons is obviously global and obviously defies any of the border
Speaker:restrictions that any government is talking about putting in. Like these weapons fly effortlessly
Speaker:across borders, but so do our movements, right? And we are, as you mentioned, connected to
Speaker:activists all over the world. And we don't stop feeling responsible for these weapons
Speaker:the second they leave Canadian airspace, right? And we just kind of pass the... I don't want
Speaker:to say the responsibility, we we passed kind of the load of organizing against these weapons
Speaker:onto our friends in other countries when they go there and they're ready to pick that up
Speaker:and to see what they can do to stop these shipments too. Just think of it. You've given your
Speaker:Belgian comrades points of intervention that they may have been lacking. You know, they
Speaker:got a victory. They need another goal. They they're looking for other ways to contribute.
Speaker:So yeah, let it not be a burden to them. let them roll with this information and I
Speaker:imagine you're hoping a lot of folks are going to pick up with this information. I'll include
Speaker:links to the urgent movement briefing on Thursday so folks will have plenty of time to listen
Speaker:to this but then really get the meat and potatoes from all the work you Henin have done. Just
Speaker:describing the database kind of gave me a headache trying to think of going through all of that
Speaker:information. And I imagine maybe other activists in other countries are looking at what you've
Speaker:done. I had a question there, answer it don't answer it. Did you give Unifor a heads up?
Speaker:Yeah, know we are in communication with the unions, especially the ones that have been
Speaker:kind of calling for an arms embargo. And yeah, we are in communication about them with them
Speaker:about this report. And we hope that they will be able to use this information and mobilize
Speaker:their membership and go through their processes to take real action based on it. I obviously
Speaker:can't speak to what they will do, but yeah, we would consider all of these workers and
Speaker:these unions allies in this struggle. And we each have our lane where we can take action
Speaker:on this. And I think workers are a key one. And I should also, of course, give a shout
Speaker:out to Labour for Palestine, which has been doing such amazing work organizing with unions
Speaker:and with labour over the last... 21 months especially, and they're a key part of this
Speaker:report as well. Hanine, what did you learn putting this report together other than the
Speaker:horrors you're going to spell out for folks and the stuff that we're going to get mad about?
Speaker:But I mean, like talking to other activists who sometimes have to do this kind of tedious
Speaker:long-term work when everything seems so urgent, right? This took a long time. At some point,
Speaker:you wanted to just tell everybody every little bit you found. But you folks, that's hours
Speaker:and hours and months and held on to this and crafted something, a real tool for a lot of
Speaker:people to use. Do you have any lessons you can share with us? Listen, it really did take a
Speaker:lot of time. It took a lot of energy. But at end of the day, it's, you know, for the longest
Speaker:time, you know, I think we've all felt very hopeless, you know, like, what can we do? So
Speaker:this, honestly, to me, putting all this energy, I didn't Like I felt it, but I can say that
Speaker:every single second of it was worth it because this is the least that we can do during, you
Speaker:know, these, you know, what's happening in Gaza. It's, don't know, lessons. I think what
Speaker:I learned is that if we push hard enough, the information is out there. And I'm really excited
Speaker:to work, to keep working on more things coming, because this is not going to be the end of
Speaker:it, you know, unfortunately. I want to keep this going. We want to keep this going as
Speaker:a team. we want to be able to, if the government says another statement, want to be able to
Speaker:keep, we want to make sure that this is the truth. You know what I mean? So in the report,
Speaker:Rachel is going to talk about all of the lies and chronologically, and every single time
Speaker:we show them something, they come up with another lie to try to hide what we've, you know what
Speaker:I mean? So I just want to make sure that we reach a point where this is no longer. And
Speaker:until this happens, we don't want to stop what we're doing. Well, you do eventually, right?
Speaker:mean, one day we can rest, Yeah, one day, hopefully. But I think like Hanine alluded to further
Speaker:research, and I think it's really important to highlight, like all of the research and
Speaker:the revelations in this report is just about direct military exports. from Canada to Israel
Speaker:when we know that's only one of kind of three big parts of an arms embargo, right? Like there's
Speaker:these direct exports and that's all this report touches on. But then like you also alluded
Speaker:to earlier, Jessa, there's a whole second pie of the indirect exports that weapons of Canada
Speaker:sells to the US and then the US either gifts or sells that to Israel. This report doesn't
Speaker:even dig into that, but we have plans on that. And then the third whole piece that this report
Speaker:doesn't touch on is all the Canada is buying. from Israel. So we're showing, hey, look at
Speaker:all these things Canada is selling to Elbit. We haven't even touched on yet what is Canada
Speaker:buying from Elbit? Like how are we flowing Canadian, in this case taxpayer dollars, by Canadian
Speaker:military but also Canadian police forces buying tons of military equipment from Israel. This
Speaker:doesn't even get into those two pieces. So there's lots more to uncover. But I mean, one thing
Speaker:I want to say though about this research and this report is that I think it is a really
Speaker:shocking amount of information about these exports, but on its own, this information is not going
Speaker:to change what the Canadian government does. What we need this report to do is to generate
Speaker:a political crisis for the Canadian government. And that's our purpose as movement organizations.
Speaker:Like PYM and World Beyond Web, we're not like research think tanks, right? Like if we're
Speaker:these hours into a report, it's because we need it to change Canada's material support for
Speaker:Israel genocide. And the only way that's going to happen with this report is if our movements
Speaker:take it out. Like I really want to speak to, yeah, again, like there's more than 450 organizations
Speaker:at this point that have endorsed the Arms Embargo Now campaign. And I know that there's like
Speaker:hundreds of thousands of people across the country who are waiting for these updates. This is
Speaker:your report, right? This belongs to all of those people. And it is only gonna create an arms
Speaker:embargo. It's only gonna actually stop the flow of weapons if everyone takes this up and uses
Speaker:the info in it to hold the Canadian government. beat to the fire. And we know that kind of
Speaker:pressure can force them to act. But the report on its own, unfortunately, the truth, the information,
Speaker:like we have decades of social movement history to know that the truth on its own doesn't create
Speaker:change. It's when people mobilize the truth to put real pressure on the government that
Speaker:change happens. So I hope that everyone will consider this their report and will run with
Speaker:it, whether that's confronting their local MPs. whether that's, as Haneen mentioned,
Speaker:perhaps showing up at some of their local weapons factories. And we'll have lots of ideas of
Speaker:what people can do with this report on Thursday's call. And if anyone's listening to this podcast
Speaker:and Thursday's call has passed, all of the info is at armsembargonow.ca slash report. So the
Speaker:report is there, the information on the urgent briefing is there. If the briefing has already
Speaker:happened, the recording will also be there. I can only imagine you have some suggested
Speaker:actions. I would like to see what didn't make the final cut. know, things we could do, things
Speaker:we want to do, things we're legally allowed to do, other. Yeah, I look forward to seeing
Speaker:the report in its entirety. I will link as much information as as you release it. We will feed
Speaker:it into the show notes. for folks just looking to click and end up at World Beyond War's website
Speaker:or Palestinian youth movement. usually steer folks towards your Instagram. It's full of
Speaker:actions constantly happening right across the country. Do you folks have any parting words?
Speaker:I would say I hope that everyone, you know, feels as infuriated as we do and that, you
Speaker:know, people reach out. I think we're also going to have an email on the arms embargo
Speaker:website. So if they have any questions, anything like that, we'll answer any questions that
Speaker:may be. And to support Sarah, talk about it, because this is what's going to really
Speaker:make a difference, like Rachel said. would be nice if everyone had that in their pocket,
Speaker:you know, for when they tried to that line, we don't sell arms and everyone just knew in
Speaker:the back of their head. No, we know you do. know, like that just doesn't fly anymore.
Speaker:They're going to have to either retool their argument or stop. Yeah. Right. So yeah, we
Speaker:will do our best to amplify this and all the work that you do. And I very much appreciate
Speaker:all the work that you do and your comrades behind you. Thank you so much. That is a wrap on
Speaker:another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Blueprints of Disruption
Speaker:is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPEofDisruption.
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Speaker:be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
