RANT: "DADDY, WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE GENOCIDE?"

 

    Pro-Palestinian demonstration Parliament Hill, 12 April 2025

MY LAST POST discussed growing censorship regimes in the United States where constitutionally protected free speech rights are being trampled by authorities determined to muzzle critics of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The cases of campus crackdowns on student protests in support of Palestine have garnered considerable news coverage in the U.S. I also mentioned the recent campus protests at McGill University in Montreal and at the University of Toronto demanding divestment of stock portfolios with links to Israel and the Israeli military. Needless to say, student protestors face strong headwinds bringing about any change in their respective universities’ investment practices. Meanwhile, the censorship crisis continues apace, with new laws on the books in numerous Western countries regulating speech, for example, labeling pro-Palestinian social media posts as "Hate Speech" can bring the authorities to your door, as was the recent case of Montreal's Yves Engler*, who was arrested and detained for responding on an X-post thread to commentary by a strident Israel supporter whose distasteful posts  parrot the party line among hard-core Zionists and Israeli-apologists. But there are still instances when public protest (a demonstrable form of speech) challenges the status quo and sheds light on government malfeasance and things that should not be.

 

ON THAT FRONT, last Saturday there was a recent pro-Palestinian protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa condemning the recent sale of “artillery propellant” to the United States. Protestors claim the munitions shipment to the United States, worth over seventy-five million dollars, comes with an explicit provision that tags the propellant as being for Israel. In the past, Canada could hide behind the fig-leaf of 'third-party use' restrictions for weapons sales to United States. Recall, last year, how Global Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly, under considerable media scrutiny at the time, stopped sales of “high explosive mortar cartridges” to the U.S. as they were tagged to be re-exported by the Americans to Israel. Minister Joly promised that weapons sales to the United States were contingent on their not being sent to regimes that abuse human rights. And Ottawa, at the time, was uncharacteristically critical of Israel and its arguably genocidal actions in Gaza. You would think Canadian officials would be on their toes doing everything in their power to deny the Israeli military weaponry it then uses in Gaza, a setting for war crimes and as gross a violation of human rights as we’ve seen since the end of the second world war. Just sayin’. 

 

ANOTHER check to stop Canadian-made munitions from being used by Israel is (or should be) the fact that Canada is a signatory to the “Arms Trade Treaty” (2013) that seeks to put ‘guard rails’ on the global sales of conventional weaponry.

 

“The ATT, adopted in April 2013 and entering into force in December 2014, is the first international treaty to regulate the conventional arms trade. The treaty was realized after years of advocacy by civil society organizations from around the world, which celebrated it as a transformative multilateral framework that would address the humanitarian toll posed by the unchecked trade and transfer of military goods. Core obligations of States Parties to the ATT include ensuring that arms exports will not be used in human-rights violations, increasing transparency in the arms trade, and safeguarding against the diversion of conventional arms. At the time of this report’s publication, the treaty included 116 States Parties — more than half of the world’s countries.” (Ploughshares)

 

WHILE MINISTER JOLY CANCELLED the multi-million-dollar cartridge sale, it has recently come to light that Global Affairs Canada signed off on the sale to the United States of artillery propellant used in conjunction with the ever-popular 155-millimeter artillery shell. The sale agreement was clearly tagged as being “for Israel”, and the deal was brokered by the crown corporation, CCC (Canadian Commercial Corporation), between GD-OTS (General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical System-Canada) and the American DOD (Department of Defense). GDO-Canada, the subsidiary or evil stepchild of the giant American arms manufacturer produces the ammunition in Quebec at its idyll-sounding “Valleyfield” plant, which is “the sole source of this type of propellant for the US Army, which is responsible for supplying most munitions to US military aid recipients, including Israel.” (Ploughshares)  

AND this deal came only weeks after Joly stopped the cartridges sale in August of last year. Hence, last weekend’s protest on Parliament Hill.

 

Viet Nam protestor: Flowers, not bullets

The Ottawa protest highlights the lack of transparency governing the sale of munitions to the United States and the specific complaint of Canada being culpable, with its munitions sales via the U.S. to Israel, in the Gazan genocide.  

 

“This…reveals the flaws in the arms free-trade zone between Canada and the United States, which allows the provision of armaments to regimes that abuse human rights, without scrutiny from, or accountability on the part of, Canadian officials. Other examples include the more than $100 million in Canadian-made F-35 components that have been exported to Israel through the US DOD.” (Ploughshares)

 

Your tax dollars at work. Have a nice day.😯

 

 Cheers, Jake.____________________________

 

* I'll discuss Yves' case in a separate post.