Canadian officials are saying little publicly about the state of the Canadian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, a week after an Israeli bomb or missile demolished an Iranian Embassy annex next door.
A source at Global Affairs Canada (GAC) told CBC News that Canada’s embassy building sustained damage in the April 1 airstrike, including the destruction of at least some of its windows. Officials have not yet been able to assess the building for structural damage.
The blast that destroyed the consular annex next door would have sent a powerful shockwave through the foundations of adjacent structures.
Global Affairs has declined to answer questions about whether the Israeli government warned Canada in advance of the strike on the Iranian Embassy annex.
The nearby Canadian embassy ceased operations in 2012 as the Syrian civil war worsened. GAC didn’t say whether Israel checked with Canada to ensure that no Canadian personnel were on site when the airstrike hit.
Canadian diplomats and other personnel, including RCMP officers, have entered Syria on several occasions since the embassy was closed. It’s not clear whether they used the embassy as a base of operations.
The GAC source told CBC News the embassy building remains the property of the Government of Canada.
The Canadian Embassy is two doors down from the large and ornate mission of the Islamic Republic on al-Farabi Street in the Mazzeh district, which houses many foreign embassies. Between the two buildings was a nondescript consular annex used by the Iranian government.
On the night of Monday, April 1, that annex was hosting a meeting of Iranian generals and senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The death toll from the Israeli airstrike could not be independently confirmed; the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the strike killed 16, including two civilian bystanders.
Iranian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari claimed that the strike had been carried out by Israeli F-35 aircraft that fired six missiles.
The Iranian government announced the deaths of seven IRGC members, including two generals. Some Israeli reports claimed that a representative of Hezbollah was killed in the strike, and the New York Times quoted an IRGC source as saying Palestinian Islamic Jihad had a representative at the meeting.
The most significant loss for Iran was that of Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi of the IRGC’s foreign operations arm, the Quds Force. Reza Zahedi was the only Iranian to sit on the Shura, or guiding council, of the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, and was widely considered to be Iran’s top military official in Syria and Lebanon.
WATCH | Top Iranian commander among dead after Israeli airstrike in Damascus, reports say
Top Iranian commander among dead after Israeli airstrike in Damascus, reports say
8 days ago
Duration 3:06
An Israeli airstrike hit a building next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus on Monday, according to reports from Iranian media and security sources. At least six people have reportedly been killed, including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Israel has a policy of not claiming responsibility for strikes conducted in other countries. An Israeli Embassy spokesperson declined to say whether Israel had warned Canada in advance of the airstrike.
“Israel have not taken responsibility for the strike,” Yifah Mivtach Greenvald of the Israeli Embassy told CBC News, “so I have no further comment than that.”
Iran has promised to take revenge. “The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Iran’s ISNA state news agency.
Iranian TV also published images of different types of ballistic missiles it said could hit Israel. The threats of reprisal have caused Israel to cancel all military leave and bolster its air defences.
Israeli officials also leaked news that their air force was practicing drills for strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities,
A Building between the Iranian and Canadian Embassy in the Syrian Capital of Damascus has been Targeted and Totally Destroyed this morning by an Israeli Airstrike, with the Building reported to possibly contain High-Ranking Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). <a href=”https://t.co/wgUoFtz7HL”>pic.twitter.com/wgUoFtz7HL</a>
The Vienna Convention that protects diplomatic missions only prohibits host countries from acts of violence against diplomatic missions — Israel’s strike on an embassy in a third country is not a violation of the treaty, although it does violate international conventions.
Israel has long argued that Iranian government officials were involved in the deadly bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992.
In December, a French consular employee was killed along with family members in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on a house belonging to another staff member of France’s consulate in Gaza.
“The house was hit by an Israeli air strike on Wednesday evening, which seriously hurt our agent and killed about 10 others,” France’s foreign ministry said.
France condemned the bombing of a residential building.
“We’ve asked for explanations as to why the house was hit,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
