The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dominated the national news over the past couple of weeks, and yet the official response from Ottawa has been fairly low-key.
 
To understand why, I think it’s worth reviewing the Canadian government’s general position.
 
It can be found on the Global Affairs Canada website under the title: “Canadian policy on key issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
 
And while partisans on both sides will inevitably find fault with the details, as an analyst of Canadian foreign policy, I find them to be quite reasonable.
 
To begin, Canada “supports Israel’s right to live in peace with its neighbours within secure boundaries and recognizes Israel’s right to assure its own security.”
 
More specifically, “Israel has a right under international law to take the necessary measures, in accordance with human rights and international humanitarian law, to protect the security of its citizens from attacks by terrorist groups.” 
 
At the same time, “Canada recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.”
 
Ottawa maintains that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be settled peaceably, and that the final agreement should based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).
 
Canada doesn’t “recognize Israel’s unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem,” nor does it recognize “permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967.”
 
(There is, in other words, a difference between military occupation, which can be acceptable under certain circumstances, and the construction of permanent settlements and security barriers on occupied land; the latter violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and are therefore illegal under international law.)
 
Finally, Ottawa has listed Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades as terrorist groups. As a result, it does not recognize them as legitimate international actors.
 
What does all of this mean?
 
Based on recent media coverage, while an unusual number of individual Canadians appear to claim a personal stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Canada’s fundamental national interests are less implicated in the recent violence than they are in the long-term impact of the ongoing dispute on the international order.
 
Canada prospers within a peaceful and stable world where conflict is settled through diplomacy. We are at a disadvantage when state and non-state actors pursue their objectives by force (and at an even greater disadvantage when they do so illegally).
 
The Canadian government therefore typically reserves its active engagement in military strife for (1) conflicts that affect this country directly; (2) conflicts that implicate our NORAD, NATO, or Five Eyes allies directly; and (3) conflicts that offer the possibility of non-violent resolution when all of the actors involved are open to, and perhaps even actively seek out, Ottawa’s involvement.
 
Otherwise, Canadian interests dictate that Ottawa remain at the margins since (1) it will generally be powerless to improve the situation; and (2) any expression of criticism, however justifiable, will more likely increase the tension than deflate it.
 
However viscerally the Israeli-Palestinian conflict implicates individual Canadians, it does not threaten this country directly.
 
And while Canada has long been a supporter of the State of Israel, we are not treaty-bound to engage when it is at war.
 
Finally, since there is no reason to believe that either side in the conflict is seriously contemplating a long-term cessation of hostilities, there is little value to be added by Canadian diplomats right now.
 
It seems to me that it is unlikely that the Trudeau government approves of what may have been Israeli provocations in Jerusalem, but it almost certainly also recognizes that when a country faces a barrage of indiscriminate rocket fire from a terrorist group, it is all but obligated to respond with force.
 
In this context, Ottawa’s relatively limited public response to the recent events in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza is consistent with the national interest.
 
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Of all of the pieces that I have read on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the last couple of weeks, I found this one in Foreign Policy magazine, written by the global affairs journalist Elise Labott, to be particularly helpful.

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Three weeks ago, Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship, Marco Mendicino, announced that he was opening a “new pathway to permanent residency for over 90,000 essential temporary workers and international graduates.”
 
The policy makes intuitive sense: Canada’s population is aging, and the ratio of working age Canadians to seniors is shrinking.
 
Without immigrants to supplement the workforce (improved productivity would also help), Canadians will be facing a combination of higher taxes, fewer public services, and a lower standard of living for years to come.
 
The pandemic has restricted our immigration intake, and it will be hard to welcome the number of new immigrants we desperately need from outside the country until COVID-19 has been vanquished.
 
So why not accelerate the path to permanent residency for migrants who are already here?
 
What’s more, why not focus on those who are working in essential services – ostensibly to recognize their vital contributions to this country – and graduated international students, who represent a cohort of skilled workers that can contribute to our economic prosperity immediately?
 
Unfortunately, translating this idea into action has gotten complicated.
 
The Migrant Rights Network, which describes itself as “Canada’s largest migrant-led coalition,” issued a scathing report last week, titled: “Exclusion, Disappointment, Chaos & Exploitation: Canada’s New Short-Term Immigration Pathway.” 
 
The organization maintains that the new program is too exclusive and I, too, wonder about the $1000 application fee.
 
But when the paper starts to complain about the requirement for a valid English or French language accreditation, I get uncomfortable.
 
To be fair, part of the problem appears to be the accessibility of the $300 language proficiency tests. The backlog is up to four months long. This two-pronged barrier requires a response from the minister.
 
I am less sympathetic to the story of a farm worker named Gary, whose complaints are highlighted in a press release and repeated in an article in the Toronto Star:
 
“I am excluded from the government’s perm residency program because I cannot pass the English test … If we have survived here working in English for years, why do we need to do a test?”
 
Ironically, the Star provided the answer a few days later in a headline: “Language can be a barrier to COVID-19 vaccine access.”
 
There is an extensive history of academic research documenting how proficiency in one of Canada’s official languages is a critical determinant of economic and social integration.
 
In other words, offering a labourer like Gary permanent residency when he struggles in English (and doesn’t speak French) is likely to condemn him to a life of relative poverty with limited opportunities to break free.
 
It seems to me that the Migrant Rights Network is therefore doing the Garys of this country a disservice in their advocacy.
 
Rather than calling on Minister Mendicino to wave the language test, why not advocate paid language training for all of the temporary foreign workers doing the essential work that is keeping our country functioning instead?
 
Canada’s historical treatment of migrant workers has been shameful. The Migrant Rights Network is right to advocate on their behalf.
 
But offering people a path to permanent residency without the tools they need to prosper is not the solution.
 
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On Canadian immigration policy, take a look at some of the great work being done by the Conference Board of Canada’s National Immigration Centre.

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