Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly says she is urging Israel to de-escalate growing conflicts in the Middle East and not to bomb Iran in retaliation for last weekend’s botched airstrikes.
“We believe it is important for Israel to be able to protect itself, and it has done so over the weekend,” Joly said Monday in Parliament.
On Saturday, Iran launched its first military attack against Israel, using hundreds of drones and missiles that Tehran said were aimed at military infrastructure.
Joly said he has since spoken with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to dissuade his government from responding with direct attacks on Iran.
“I have been clear to my counterpart in Israel: please build on the victory and ensure that we can work together to restore peace in the region,” he said.
“Canada is pressing diplomatically to stop further escalation.”
Israel and Iran have been in a proxy war for years, with Israel accusing Tehran of empowering groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to attack Israel.
Israel is widely believed to have been behind the April 1 airstrike on Iran’s embassy in Syria, which killed senior military officers. International rules protecting diplomatic missions generally consider attacks on embassies to target the states those buildings represent.
Iran retaliated with a series of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles on Saturday and Sunday, the vast majority of which Israel and Jordan managed to intercept.
The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system is launched to intercept missiles fired from Iran, in central Israel, Sunday, April 14, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/AP Photo)
Rising tensions led opposition conservatives to once again table a motion in Parliament that would list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of Iran’s military, as a terrorist group.
In 2018, MPs voted in favor of a motion to list the group, although the Liberals have resisted moving forward, saying it is up to security officials to impartially designate terrorist groups.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has argued that listing the IRGC as a terrorist group in the Criminal Code would punish Canadians who were forcibly recruited into Iran’s military.
Instead, Ottawa has implemented an entry ban on people who have been members of the group’s upper ranks since November 2019.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis on Monday asked the House of Commons to re-apply for such inclusion.
“I hope that after six years of delay, this government will finally do it,” Genuis told the House.
The motion would expedite a private member’s bill that would classify the IRGC as a terrorist group “as soon as possible after the events of this weekend, and as efficiently as possible,” he said.
The motion was debated for more than an hour on Monday.
Joly said the government has already asked Public Safety Canada to explore such a list and will “continue to exert maximum pressure against the Iranian regime.”
He also said he will discuss further sanctions against Iran at this week’s meeting with his fellow foreign ministers in the G7 bloc of like-minded countries in Italy.
“From now on, under my purview, what we can do is quickly appoint key people to be part of these activities that are criminal activities against Israelis and also against our interests.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 15, 2024.