Senator Yuen Pau Woo

Motion Pertaining to the Situation in Gaza—Debate

Hon. Yuen Pau Woo, pursuant to notice of June 25, 2025, moved:

That, in light of findings and orders from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court on the situation in Gaza, the Senate call on the Government to examine the risk to Canada and Canadians of complicity in violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and to report on its findings within three months of the adoption of this motion.

He said: Honourable senators, on this solemn day, exactly two years after the killing of over 1,200 men, women and children in southern Israel, I am calling on this chamber to reflect on the horror of that day and the horror of its aftermath every day since — not just in Israel but also Gaza and the West Bank.

I condemn the killing of innocent civilians on October 7, 2023, which has been described as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. I also condemn the recent attacks on Jews in synagogues and community spaces, in Manchester, Berlin, Warsaw and Tokyo, as well as right here in Ottawa, where an elderly woman was attacked at a grocery store just a month ago. The Jewish community is reeling from these assaults and has called for more action against anti-Semitism and more education about the Holocaust.

Even though we are four months away from International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we would do well to mark every day leading up to January 27 in the way that the occasion was meant to serve: as a solemn commitment to remember the 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazis and to say “never again” to genocide.

We need to mark every day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day because we are allowing again today what was to be never again. I can see how difficult it is for many of us to contemplate the idea that the modern state representing a Semitic people who suffered so much at the hands of the Nazis could inflict unspeakable horror on another Semitic people. There are those who say that it is anti-Semitic to suggest that the State of Israel could be committing a genocide against Palestinians, but that argument is disingenuous and illogical. It also dishonours the very purpose of Holocaust remembrance and the spirit of “never again.”

There are, of course, some who deny that a genocide has taken place. Genocide has been described as “the crime of crimes” in international law, and the term has been used liberally to describe many troubling situations around the world where there have been serious abuses of human rights. I do not use the term lightly and defer to experts who apply strict criteria to a claim of genocide.

In the case of Israel’s assault on Palestine since October 7, 2023, the consensus that a genocide has happened is so overwhelming that we cannot look away. Just last month, a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry —

Point of Order

Hon. Pamela Wallin: Point of order. I’m referring to Rule 6-13(1) that has to do with sharp and taxing language, and I really do find the use of the word “genocide,” this language, offensive.

I don’t think genocide has been established, and I find it particularly offensive on this day, when we are commemorating the grotesque murder of some 1,200 souls, including Canadians. I think it reflects badly on this chamber.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Are there other senators who want to intervene?

Senator Woo: Your Honour, I’m just about to give the evidence for why a genocide has taken place, including a citation from the UN International Commission on Human Rights, which made its judgment only a month ago.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Are there other senators who want to intervene on this point of order?

[Translation]

Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: If I may, Your Honour, I believe that today, we are commemorating a day that was sad and unacceptable, not only for all the Jews in the world, but also for all human beings on this planet. I move that the senator be allowed to continue his speech tomorrow if it has to do with any topic other than the tragic events of October 7.

[English]

Senator Woo: Your Honour, I consider that a breach of my privilege. I’ve started my speech. I will, in the course of my speech, elaborate on the points that I’ve started on. I was just about to make the case that Senator Wallin has objected to.

If senators indulge me to allow me to continue this speech, they will see why this case is very strong and why we need to take this very seriously.

Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): If I may, I just want to support what Senator Wallin and Senator Saint-Germain have stated — that this is a very significant day and we heard a statement about the horrors of October 7 two years ago. So out of my sincere respect for the Jewish community around the world and for those especially here in Canada, if Senator Woo would consider continuing the statement, which he has every right to do, tomorrow out of that respect that, I think, all of us share at this time.

Senator Woo: Your Honour, I make this speech out of the deepest respect for the Jewish community. I have already stated very clearly how I condemn the horror of October 7, 2023, how I condemn the acts of violence against Jewish people in Canada and around the world.

I think it does a disservice to Jewish people to not allow this speech to continue on the grounds that some senators’ sensibilities may be offended. If the case you are arguing is there was no genocide, let that be debated in this chamber, and let me present the evidence for you to consider.

Speaker’s Ruling

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Honourable senators, I will ask all senators to follow rule 6-13, which I will read just to remind us that “[a]ll personal, sharp, or taxing speeches are unparliamentary and are out of order.” I would ask Senator Woo, and all senators, to consider this rule and to take it into account in debate.

Motion Pertaining to the Situation in Gaza—Debate Adjourned

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Woo, seconded by the Honourable Senator Dean:

That, in light of findings and orders from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court on the situation in Gaza, the Senate call on the Government to examine the risk to Canada and Canadians of complicity in violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and to report on its findings within three months of the adoption of this motion.

Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: The Independent International Commission of Inquiry found that Israel has violated the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by:

. . . killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

The responsibility for ending the genocide rests, above all, with Israel, but not Israel alone. All states, including Canada, have legal obligations under international and domestic law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.

This brings me to my motion. I am calling on the Government of Canada to examine the risk to Canada and Canadians of complicity in violations of international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and to report on its findings within three months of the adoption of this motion.

Why do we need this motion? Well, over the last two years, serious violations of international law have been perpetrated in Gaza. These vile acts have been livestreamed on our phones and broadcast by Israeli leaders with arrogance and seeming impunity.

What did we do to try and prevent it? What have we done to make it easier for Israel to commit war crimes? Why did we proscribe and punish Canadians for trying to do what they could to raise the alarm? Why is there a double standard in the way we have responded to the situation in Gaza compared to, say, Ukraine? These are just some of the questions that my motion seeks answers to, and not just answers from the government, because these are questions that we need to ask more broadly of Canadian society.

How have universities acted against students and teachers advocating for Palestinian justice? What have they done about the investments in Israel? What about corporate Canada and our pension funds? How have professional bodies, hospitals and school boards weaponized anti-Semitism to silence their members from speaking out against atrocities in Palestine?

Why has the media been so one-sided in its reporting on the situation in Palestine, and what role did that play in allowing the genocide to unfold? What amount of foreign interference and disinformation, on behalf of Israel and its allies, did our security and intelligence agencies allow in Canada — in service of war crimes?

The prohibition to commit genocide is a jus cogens, or peremptory norm, from which no party, including individuals and corporations, can derogate.

In tabling this motion, I am calling on Canadians to have a national conversation about what we did while a genocide was unfolding before our very eyes. This may be an uncomfortable conversation, but it is a necessary one that is already taking place across the country. For example, a citizens’ tribunal on Canadian complicity is being planned for November, mirroring the work of The Gaza Tribunal in the U.K. and modelled on the famous Bertrand Russell Tribunal on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam.

The question of complicity is not an academic debate. It is a matter of international law, which Canada claims to uphold. The ultimate test of our adherence to international law is when we find ourselves on the wrong side of it. And in the case of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, we may well be in that uncomfortable position.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in their October 2024 position paper:

The Commission also takes note of State responsibility through complicity, namely when a State knowingly aids or assists another State in the commission of an internationally wrongful act. The Commission notes, for violations of international humanitarian law, it has already reported that Israel has committed war crimes in the context of the war in Gaza since 7 October 2023. On the issue of genocide, the Commission notes the provisional measures orders issued by the Court in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip . . . . The Commission finds that all States are on notice that Israel may be or is committing internationally wrongful acts in both its conduct in the military operations in Gaza and its unlawful occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Thus, the Commission finds that, unless States cease their aid and assistance to Israel in the commission of these acts, those States shall be deemed to be complicit in those internationally wrongful acts.

The Canadian government’s position, as articulated most recently by our newly appointed ambassador to the UN, is that it is waiting on the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, to come to a final pronouncement on whether a genocide has taken place in Gaza. This is, at best, a misunderstanding of international law.

The Genocide Convention is as much about preventing a genocide as it is about punishing the perpetrators. Canada has been put on notice of an impending genocide at least as early as January 2024. In the latest advisory from the ICJ in April 2024, the court said that all states must “. . . employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide so far as possible.”

Throughout those early months in Israel’s assault on Gaza, the Canadian government position was largely to defend Israel’s actions. We heard it in this very chamber from the former government representative, who, in answer to my repeated questions on the subject, claimed that humanitarian aid was not impeded by Israel, that there was no targeting of civilians by the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, and that Israel’s actions were well within its right of self-defence.

Yet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and numerous human rights organizations have documented the intentional blockade of humanitarian aid and food as well as the weaponization of aid through private contractors.

All this information is known to the Government of Canada. The government has acknowledged as much by issuing periodic statements expressing dismay about the situation in Gaza.

Perhaps the strongest statement came on May 19, 2025, when, together with the United Kingdom and France, Canada stated:

We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable. . . . We call on the Israeli Government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.

Well, the military offensive was ramped up, and Israel continued to restrict humanitarian aid to the point that the United Nations has called Gaza “the hungriest place in the world.” Four months after the statement, Canada still has not taken any concrete actions to stop the slaughter and restore humanitarian aid into Gaza. In the meantime, the horror has deepened. Today, with more than 200,000 Palestinians killed or injured and almost all of Gaza’s infrastructure obliterated, we can look back on our empty, pious statements and see them for what they were.

Under the genocide convention, as well as domestic law, Canada is obliged to take all reasonable actions within its power to stop the assault on Gaza. Instead of upholding our legal responsibilities, however, Canada has continued to assist Israel by maintaining strong military, political and economic ties with the Israeli government.

For example, Canada permitted exports of military equipment to Israel between October and December 2023 amounting to $28.5 million, more than the total amounts approved for the full years of 2021 and 2022. It was not until March 2024 that the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that Canada would suspend future applications for the export of arms to Israel.

Yet, a group of non-governmental agencies, or NGOs, released a report in July 2025 documenting ongoing shipments of military goods from Canada to Israel, including shipments of bullets, military equipment, weapons parts, aircraft components and communication devices between October 2023 and July 2025.

When asked to explain these shipments, the best that Global Affairs Canada could offer was that the information employed by the NGOs, drawing on Israeli customs data, was not consistent with the datasets used to administer the Export and Import Permits Act.

The Government of Canada also allows the recruitment of volunteers into the Israeli military for combat as well as non-combat assignments in contravention of the Foreign Enlistment Act. We are, in effect, turning a blind eye to Canadians who are aiding and abetting war crimes on behalf of Israel.

Another factor in possible Canadian complicity is our failure to impose financial or economic measures on Israel. Canada has not sanctioned any member of the Israeli military or Israel as a state.

In other words, in the words of the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, July 2024 Advisory Opinion, Canada has failed to cease all financial, trade, investment and economic relations with Israel that maintain the unlawful occupation or contribute to maintaining it.

Canada continues to provide trade benefits to Israel through the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. CIFTA, as it’s called, has long been in violation of international law by failing to differentiate between goods and services from Israel and those from the illegally occupied territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan. That we still offer preferential market access to Israel during its genocide in Palestine only compounds our disregard for international law.

Honourable colleagues, some of you will be thinking that it is self-defeating for our government to admit to complicity because of damage to our national interest. I am sure that is going through the minds of legal advisors in the Department of Justice Canada and Global Affairs Canada, as well as around the cabinet table. The instinct of the government is, of course, to plead plausible deniability: that we did what we could, that we didn’t know until now, that our hands were tied and that we are interested in solutions rather than blame, et cetera. We may even end up arguing that a genocide did not take place, as a way of absolving ourselves from the responsibility of not acting sufficiently to prevent it. That would be the kind of cynical, twisted logic that allowed Canada to pretend for 150 years that it did its best for Indigenous Peoples, that it had no idea of the harms caused and that the past is best left buried and forgotten.

It took Canada over a decade to acknowledge and apologize for its inaction on the Rwandan genocide. Will it take as long again on Palestine? That the world failed to stop another genocide when it had the chance to do so is a stain on all countries. The sooner that Canada can come to terms with its role in that failure, the better it will be for our moral standing in the world and our ability to be taken seriously on global issues.

Now that we have recognized the state of Palestine, our responsibility to uphold international law for Palestine is greater than ever. There are many angles to this motion, and I invite honourable colleagues to speak to any of them. If we pass this motion soon, we may even have a response from the government in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We will then learn, on January 27, 2026, if Canada really means “never again” when it says, “Never again.”

Thank you.