Good Sunday Morning!
Hope to be seeing many friends this afternoon in the annual Vancouver Pride Parade. We are all marching together – the Vancouver Greens, organized at the municipal level, with elected Greens on Vancouver City Council, and BC Greens, expecting all three candidates for leadership to be there! Jonathan Kerr, Adam Bremner-Akins and Emily Lowan, and federal Greens. Even a lot of Greens do not know our record of leadership on LGBTLQ+ issues. We were the first party to support equal marriage and we had the first openly gay leader – Chris Lea (1990-1996). As in many areas of public policy, Greens go first and others follow. We were also the first party to call for carbon pricing, the first to call for legalizing cannabis, the first to call for an arms embargo on military sales to Israel – all policies the Liberals have since embraced and, to varying degrees, implemented. We were also the first to call for guaranteed livable income, universal pharmacare, drug decriminalization, renouncing the doctrine of discovery and implementing UNDRIP. Although not implemented, these Green policies are certainly becoming more mainstream in the political conversation.
I do not expect that when other parties adopt our positions they will credit us, although I did once, quite affectionately, chide former Liberal leader, Stephane Dion, for taking the “Green Shift” in revenue-neutral carbon pricing, but being unable to explain it!
Greens were also the first to call for Canada to recognize the State of Palestine, and this week saw Prime Minister Mark Carney follow our lead.
In a week when the whole media cycle could have been pulled into the Black Hole of the vast Trump Distraction machine, with his August 1st deadline and threats of increased tariffs, Canada’s announcement that we would recognize the State of Palestine was brave.
I do see this as good news. On Tuesday, the Canada Palestinian Parliamentary Friendship Group met virtually to review developments. I am both co-founder and vice-chair of the group. At one time we were MPs from all five parties. In March 2018, we organized a visit to the West Bank for 18 MPs from all parties. It was an eye-opener for everyone. (Full disclosure, we worked closely with the Palestinian Authority in organizing the trip and the PA paid expenses for most MPs), I was one of two who insisted on paying my own costs. I have never accepted a paid trip from another country’s government. That makes me unusual. Such trips are routinely accepted by MPs and are subject to disclosure to the Ethics Commissioner. Lately, no Conservative MPs have been involved in our Friendship Group. We remain a thoughtful and non-partisan effort. Recently our MP group has expanded to include a number of Senators. Both the MP and Senate groups have issued open letters calling variously for release of all hostages, condemning Hamas, calling on Israel to heed the warnings of the ICJ that its actions could lead to a finding of genocide, calls for a ceasefire, and on and on as we try to end the ongoing assault on the people of Gaza, with the goal of peace for all in the region. We are active as individual parliamentarians and as groups. I mention our meeting only because on Tuesday we had no inkling of this looming shift in Canadian policy. We were MPs from four parties (Liberal, NDP, Bloc and Green, including people who are well placed near the centre of things) plus senators from the three major groups, different groupings of independent senators, no Conservatives. And we met with some of the expert researchers who had compiled from public records of the Israeli government’s tax records that provide evidence of Canada’s ongoing shipments of arms to Israel, despite our pledge to stop. The non-parliamentarians left our meeting so we could all speak candidly. None of us had any inkling that Mark Carney would make the dramatic announcement the very next day.
The reality is that Canada’s foreign policy, through several prime ministers, from Paul Martin, to Stephen Harper and beyond, has been unchanged in calling for a two-state solution. It is axiomatic that our policy requires a state of Israel and a state of Palestine. The on-going occupation has brought daily suffering to the people of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. It is those areas that under accepted international boundaries, where the legal state of Israel ends and an area of occupation without statehood now exists, would have status as a nation state – Palestine.
A lot has been said in media coverage of whether this recognition is anything more than symbolic. I think it is a critical step toward any durable peace. As a dear friend from my Dalhousie Law school days, and the former United Nations “Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine”, law professor Michael Lynk explained on NPR:
“What it means is that when countries recognize another country’s sovereignty, the sovereignty and control that that country has or should have over that territory is respected. So for Palestine, what it would mean is if Canada and France and the United Kingdom now recognize the state of Palestine, they’re recognizing its sovereignty over East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and that they would be opposed to and probably compelled to take diplomatic action in support of Palestinian exercise of its sovereignty over those territories, which, of course, right now, are under the full control of Israel. So it would mean these countries would be opposed to infringements on that sovereignty by the 360 Israeli settlements on that territory and the thousands of Israeli troops on that territory. So it has both symbolic meaning and consequential legal and political meaning, as well.”
Clearly events were moving quickly as more and more countries signaled they would soon recognize the State of Palestine. The first move in bold leadership came last weekend from French President, Emmanuel Macron. He announced that France would recognize Palestine following a very strategic conference at UN HQ in New York, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia.
France was hardly the first. Over 140 nations have already recognized Palestinian statehood, including Ireland and Spain. But France is a G7 country and that makes a difference. Macron based his diplomacy on shifting the position of a number of Arab nations moving to denounce Hamas. Macron’s small UN Conference buttressed the French decision. That small conference led to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and other Arab nations joining a call for Hamas to disarm and end its rule in Gaza, as well as supporting the “two-state solution”.
Macron pledged the recognition would be formalized at the regular annual General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) which always takes place in UN HQ in New York in September.
Following Macron, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer made his own announcement to recognize Palestine by the September UNGA session. I am more critical of Starmer’s approach. He used the promise of recognition as a blunt instrument, to demand concessions from Israel. Starmer told the Israeli government that if Israel failed to deliver substantial food aid and other relief to the people of Gaza and refused to restore their negotiating position for a two-state solution, then the UK would recognize Palestine. To equate recognition of Palestine with punishing Israel strikes me as unhelpful. As well, making UK recognition of Palestine dependent on Netanyahu agreeing to conditions, for something he does not want, is incredibly ham-fisted for a G7 leader. Over the same period of days, some of Netanyahu’s hard-line base threatened to further violate international law by annexing more of what is Palestinian territory. Layered on these shifts toward recognition of Palestinian statehood was the increased awareness globally of Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war. A UN-backed report found detailed evidence of a “worst case scenario of famine”.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5483520/gaza-famine-hunger
Into this set of shifting political stances and a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe, Carney navigated Canada’s new position. Canada did make our recognition of Palestine conditional, but with no conditions on Israel. Prior to making his announcement, the prime minister spoke with Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. As all Canada’s conditions depended on the Palestinian Authority, it was a deft move to ensure in advance that the Palestinian Authority would agree with Canada’s demands. Carney set out that the Palestinian Authority must reform its governance, hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state. Canada is now committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood at the September UNGA on the promise Palestine will do these things. Trump’s response was predictably enraged, saying “that will make it very hard for us to make a trade deal with them. [us]” and Israel called Carney’s announcement a “reward for Hamas”. Actually the reward to Hamas came from Netanyahu’s government – supporting Hamas for years. Seeing the Palestinian Authority as a larger threat, Netanyahu allowed millions to flow to the illegal terrorist group Hamas, while directly supporting Hamas with thousands of coveted work permits.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-israeli-minister-hunger-deaths-1.7597359
While I welcome Canada’s new position, it is hardly enough. We must press for immediate humanitarian relief to end the famine and save lives, just as we must work with like-minded nations to ensure the release of hostages and the end of the conflict. Recognition of the State of Palestine in September will ring hollow if thousands more have died while the world collectively wrings our hands in despair. It was with that in mind I did this interview on Wednesday, with Al Jazeera about my reaction to Canada’s announcement.
Meanwhile I did want to share this article from last Sunday’s Guardian:
We do not comply: how do we disrupt the momentum of Trump’s cruelty? Every day brings more devastation. But daily forms of rebellion can restore our sense of purpose
In it Guardian contributor “V” shares a few vignettes of individuals who have taken small steps in rebelling against the cruel impacts of Trump’s policies. For obvious reasons, most of these small acts of rebellion, or “non-compliance” have been in the U.S. In this story I learned of Youman Wilder, a Harlem NY baseball coach whose name should be known down the ages as a hero. Someone who can take the rhetoric of resistance and turn it into beautiful non-violent action. Here is more of the story of the day ICE agents showed up at his baseball practice where he coaches low-income kids, helping them learn baseball, but over decades setting many on a course to university and healthy lives of self-respect. He saw the ICE agents and heard them asking his kids, whom he knew were all born in New York, where they were from. He did not hesitate to protect those kids and stand up to the bullies.
https://www.today.com/parents/family/baseball-coach-protects-kids-ice-agents-rcna219331
from the Today article:
“Wilder asked the kids to move to the back of the batting cage while he talked to the agents from its only entrance.
“I got some tough New York City kids, so for them to be scared, it means something is really happening,” said Wilder in an interview with CNN. As the kids shuffled away from the agents, Wilder said he reassured them by saying, “Listen, I’m not going to let them get through me.”
In the same CNN interview, Wilder continued, “I just said to myself, I’m willing to die to make sure you get home.” He even doubled down on his statement, saying, “I’m willing to die today.”
As Canadians, we are very lucky. We do not have ICE agents intimidating our neighbours — not yet. But we do have to gum up the works of cruelty. Every act we take of resistance is powerful. So ask yourself, what can I do today to stand for Indigenous rights? What can I do today to demand climate action? What more can I do? I know letters to the editor sounds ineffective, but every published letter helps. When there is a protest, please show up. We need networks of grassroots solidarity. As I wrote last week, it was powerful locally that Saanich’s Mother Maple was not chopped down and the Sequoia still stands in Victoria. Every tree we defend, every vessel we stop from speeding near whales, every act we take, is one of resistance because it refuses to accept that we are powerless.
We are not powerless. It is not too late… and if anyone tells you it is, please ask “too late for what?” It is too late for species already extinct, but it is not too late for habitat we can save to keep them on Earth. It is too late to avoid climate change. It is here, but it is not too late to keep the impacts at levels we can survive – but only if we shut down fossil fuels and fast. “Too late?” Maybe in 2035, but in 2025 we have a fighting chance. So like Youman Wilder, be ready to stand up to bullies, to protect our kids and stop the onslaught of greed over life. Having hope and nurturing it is an act of resistance!
Have a great first week of August! See you next Sunday! (and if you are in SGI, remember the Summer Picnic is August 9, next Sunday!)
Elizabeth
Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
https://www.sgigreenparty.ca/