Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, released a statement last Friday condemning Israel’s blockade of aid into Gaza and calling for the distribution of food and medical supplies to be handed over to international organizations. Coming from the head of a government that has backed Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinians from the outset, Carney’s statement is a cynical fraud. It is aimed at covering up Canadian imperialism’s complicity in mass murder, and giving the Zionist regime breathing space to continue slaughtering Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Mounting popular revulsion at the horrors being wrought on the people of Gaza, which parallel nothing so much as the barbaric methods the Nazis employed in exterminating Europe’s Jews, has compelled some of Israel’s imperialist backers to try to desperately cover their tracks. On July 21, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand joined her counterparts from Britain, France, Japan, Australia and other countries in condemning the horrendous conditions in Gaza. On Friday, Carney reiterated this, chiding the Israeli government for failing to “prevent the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian disaster in Gaza.”

This distorts reality. Far from failing to “prevent” starvation in Gaza, Israel has deliberately pursued this as part of its policy to exterminate Palestinians en masse and ethnically cleanse the small enclave. Moreover, this genocide has unfolded since October 2023 with the military and political support of US, Canadian, and European imperialism.

Carney’s statement goes on, declaring, “Israel’s control of aid distribution must be replaced by comprehensive provision of humanitarian assistance led by international organizations. Many of these are holding significant Canadian-funded aid which has been blocked from delivery to starving civilians. This denial of humanitarian aid is a violation of international law.”

Carney’s crocodile tears about “starving civilians” and belated concern for “international law” should fool no one. Canada’s Liberal government, under Carney and Justin Trudeau, has funneled millions of dollars in weaponry to Israel to facilitate the genocide for close to two years. It has systematically suppressed opposition to the genocide at home, repeatedly denouncing students and workers protesting Israel’s mass slaughter and Canada’s complicity in it as “antisemites” and giving a free hand to far-right Zionist organizations to intimidate activists. At the UN, Canada has repeatedly voted with the US to block resolutions condemning Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and rampant violation of Palestinian rights.

A report published Tuesday by World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, and Independent Jewish Voices found that weapons shipments approved by the Canadian government have continued to be delivered to Israel, despite the announcement by the Liberal government that it would not issue any new permits as of January 8, 2024. Two months later, in March 2024, the Liberals engaged in a parliamentary stunt, initiated by the social-democratic New Democratic Party, by adopting a motion that purportedly prohibits the shipment of military equipment to Gaza. The NDP’s motion, widely touted in “left” publications and by the party itself as a declaration of support for a Palestinian state and the suffering Gazan population, was re-written to such an extent in backroom talks with the Liberals that its final version amounted to a declaration of support for the fascist Netanyahu and the genocide.

Under the cover provided the government by the NDP, the Canadian government has repeatedly lied about the character of its support for Israel and its enabling of the Gaza genocide. In September 2024, then Foreign Minister Melanie Joly announced that Canada would “not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza,” after it was revealed that a US-contractor, General Dynamics, was relying on a Quebec company to manufacture $83-million in mortar cartridges for Israel. Joly’s statement said nothing of blocking the use of Canadian arms  in the West Bank or in any of Israel’s other military operations across the Middle East as the attack dog of imperialism–let alone an outright ban.

The World Beyond War report, which examined Israeli tax records and publicly available shipping data, definitively exposes these lies. Its shows that between October 2023 and July 2025, there were 47 direct military shipments from Canada-based arms manufacturers to Israel. More than 421,000 bullets have been delivered from Canada to Israel since the Gaza genocide was launched, including a single shipment of 175,000 bullets in April. 

The report further notes that there were 164 export permits worth $18.9 million still open in 2024, which were used to provide a “constant pipeline” of Canadian-made war materiel. This included aircraft engines, avionics, ammunition, satellite navigation systems, radar equipment, communication and electronic warfare components, cartridges, F-35 fighter jet parts, and Elbit Systems components. Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, which operates around the world, including in Canada.

To conceal the blood on their hands, members of the Canadian government are reportedly considering following the British and French governments in the empty gesture of recognizing a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September. This is according to aides of Carney cited Wednesday by the Globe and Mail.

At the same time that Carney offers feigned concern for starving Palestinians in Gaza while his government supplies weapons to the regime responsible for their misery, he is spearheading a drive to ruthlessly assert Canadian imperialist interests around the world. In June, Carney announced a record-breaking 17 percent increase in military spending this fiscal year, and he is bolstering Ottawa’s commitment to the US/NATO war against Russia. 

Over the past weeks, the Canadian government has announced new aid packages, weapons shipments, and training programs for Ukraine’s far right-led military forces.

On July 12, the Department of National Defence boasted of Canada’s latest arms delivery to Kiev, including armored vehicles, drones, and munitions, as part of a long-term $500 million assistance package. This followed the government’s hosting of an “Industry for Ukraine” conference, aimed at deepening Canadian capital’s role in Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure, including in fostering ties between Ukraine’s burgeoning armaments industry and Canadian weapons manufacturers. Officials, including Liberal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, have repeatedly emphasized that Canada’s support for Ukraine is “unshakable,” even as Ukraine’s forces face collapse amid battlefield losses and domestic political crisis.

Since the beginning of the US/NATO-instigated Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Canada has committed $6.5 billion in military aid to Kiev, with weapons deliveries already planned to last at least through 2029. 

This alliance with the Ukrainian regime—whose leading figures glorify Nazi collaborators, outlaw left-wing political opposition and arrest socialist opponents of the war, including Bogdan Syrotiuk—is fully in line with the broader objectives of Canadian imperialism. Just as in the Middle East, Canada’s backing for war in Eastern Europe is cloaked by the ruling class in humanitarian rhetoric and the language of “defending democracy.” In reality, Ottawa is arming authoritarian regimes and abetting war crimes in pursuit of its own predatory interests.

Canada’s participation in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which recently held its 29th session, further underscores Ottawa’s determination to pursue a policy of world war to secure its share of the spoils in the closest possible alliance with Washington. The group exists to coordinate the shipment of NATO weaponry to wage war against Russia. Canada has pledged funding, logistics, and training through Operation UNIFIER, which has already trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops for combat.

Carney and the ruling Liberal Party are playing a central role in the criminal operations of imperialism—supporting a genocide in Gaza, while preparing the ground for ever wider wars in Europe and Asia. Their hypocritical language of humanitarian concern serves only to obscure the reality: the Canadian state is a junior partner in the global war waged by the most powerful capitalist governments to redivide the world at the cost of millions of lives.

The exposure of Canada’s role in arming Israel and deepening the war against Russia underscores the urgent necessity for the working class to intervene independently against the descent into barbarism. No confidence can be placed in any faction of the political establishment–Liberal, NDP, Conservative or pro-Quebec independence. All are complicit in genocide and imperialist war. The fight to end these crimes must be waged through the building of a mass international anti-war movement rooted in the working class and guided by a socialist program that rejects the capitalist system—the source of war, exploitation, and oppression.