Canadians could be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip in “the coming days,” Defence Minister Bill Blair said Friday, but shared no firm timeline as Canadians faced another day of being left off the list.
Groups of people, including foreign nationals from several other countries, have been allowed to exit the Palestinian territory through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in the last two days.
But Canadians have so far been excluded from the lists of those approved to depart, including the third one issued on Friday.
There are more than 450 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and their family members who want to leave Gaza, which has been under siege and regular bombardment by Israel for more than three weeks.
Blair told reporters in Ottawa on Friday there is “no specific impediment” to getting those people out. He said the Canadian government is working closely with Israel, Egypt, the United States and the United Kingdom.
He also says Canadian consular officials will be ready to help people as soon as they cross into Egypt.
Global Affairs Canada has not explained why Canadians have not made the list so far.
The department noted in written updates sent Wednesday and Thursday that the first group allowed to cross included citizens from eight countries with smaller groups of nationals in Gaza. It also said “Canada has one of the largest contingents of nationals in Gaza.”
The department has not said whether that would delay Canadians getting out, or why.
Per @judyatrinh-who got email GAC sent Cdns registered in Gaza stating 400+ will be able to leave via Rafah “in the coming days, and possibly as early as Sunday.”
Notes GAC to be in touch w “specific departure dates” & how ultimately Cda doesn’t determine who allowed to cross.
Thursday’s evacuation list from the General Authority for Border Crossings in Gaza, as presented on a widely shared Google spreadsheet, included 400 American citizens. The list shared Friday had 367 Americans. In one day, Britain has had 127 people listed as approved for departing through the Rafah crossing.
Jon Allen, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, said the effort is “very complicated,” but he wasn’t sure if countries with the most citizens would end up being among the first or last to leave.
“It does make sense that if you have a higher number, then you’re going to try and reduce that number. But I don’t know if that’s the case,” Allen said in an interview Friday.
Allen helped oversee the 2009 effort to evacuate dozens of Canadians from Gaza during an earlier war between Israel and Hamas. He said these efforts involved communicating with several governments to get everyone on the same page.
He also said the United States has an outsized influence in the region and many would expect American citizens to be among the first to be able to leave, but other countries would likely not have much ability to get ahead of others.
“It is a war and there are these processes that are inevitably going to have to be gone through,” he said.
Concerns about the risk of Hamas sympathizers crossing into Egypt could be one reason for general delays, Allen said.
“There are a lot of considerations that they’re taking,” he said.
“The Canadians will come out, and I feel sympathy for all of those that are there.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, calling once again for a humanitarian pause. Netanyahu says that will not happen until Hamas releases the hostages taken during surprise attacks on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly issued a late Thursday update on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, saying she has spoken with her counterpart in Israel, Eli Cohen, about the matter.
She said she also received confirmation of Egypt’s co-operation.
While the flow of foreign nationals leaving Gaza through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday has been slow, officials with Global Affairs Canada say they are working around the clock to evacuate Canadians from the war zone.
They are asking Canadians to get their documents and “be ready to depart once we are informed that they can cross the border.” However, as of early Friday morning, Canada had not been added to the official approval list of “foreign passports” for travel through the Rafah crossing.
Joly’s message also noted that Global Affairs Canada would communicate the latest information directly with Canadians.
Allen was not surprised that Canada has sent consular staff to be somewhere near Rafah, but not the actual crossing.
“They’re doing everything they can,” he said. “And sending a consular officer to sit at the border when nobody is coming out (yet) is not going to help the situation.”
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them civilians slain in the initial Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which Canada has listed as a terrorist organization since 2002. In addition, around 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry claims Israel’s military response has killed more than 9,000 Palestinians.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2023.
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.
