The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) has posted that its Canadian Council has “voted in support of a resolution calling on workers to refuse to handle weapons and military equipment destined for Israel”.
The Canadian Council governs the Canadian Labour Congress between conventions. It is composed of the CLC executive officers (including its president Bea Bruske), the leaders of all affiliated unions, the leaders of the provincial and territorial federations of labour, as well as four labour council representatives.
The CLC says: “Canada has a responsibility to ensure that weapons and military equipment produced here are not used to harm Palestinian civilians or contribute to violations of international humanitarian law.”
They add: “We call on the Government of Canada to end all direct and indirect transfers of arms and military equipment to Israel.”
Human rights defenders and journalists
Peace Brigades International-Canada monitors the export of Canadian “military goods” and their impacts on the safety and security of human rights defenders within a context of upholding international law and international human rights norms.
In March 2024, Mary Lawlor, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders, wrote in The Guardian: “Palestinian human rights defenders have emphasized to me the importance of a ban being placed on [the sales of weapons to Israel], given that Israel has demonstrated time and again that it will use such weapons indiscriminately against Palestinians.”
According to Global Affairs Canada, Canada has exported more than $62 million in “military goods” to Israel in the three-year period of 2023 to 2025 ($14,671,705.14 in 2025; $18,906,035.86 in 2024; and $30,641,495.83 in 2023).
The Dublin-based organization Front Line Defenders (the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) has documented that at least 9 Palestinian human rights defenders were killed in 2023, that 22 more were killed in 2024, and another 43 Palestine HRDs were killed in 2025.
The Shireen Abu Akleh Observatory says that nearly 300 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented that Israel is responsible for the killing of 86 journalists in 2025. The CPJ also notes that Israel used drones to kill 28 journalists in 2025.
At least 74,000 Palestinians, including at least 21,000 children, have been killed since October 2023. More than 175,000 people have been wounded. The World Health Organization says 24 percent of the wounded have life-changing injuries requiring long-term rehabilitation, a quarter of them children.
Other labour movement resolutions
On August 26, 2025, the Unifor Constitutional Convention in Vancouver passed a resolution that endorses “the call by Palestinian trade union for an arms embargo on Israel”.
Then in November 2025, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) adopted a resolution against arms shipments to Israel. Another resolution that was passed at the OFL convention called for research to support divestment from “entities that manufacture or distribute arms, ammunition, implements or munitions of war, as well as companies engaged in activities that support or sustain Israel’s illegal occupation.”
Resolutions against the export of weapons to Israel have also been passed by labour federations in New Brunswick (June 2025), as well as in Nova Scotia (October 2025) and Newfoundland and Labrador (November 2025).
The full statement can be read at CLC Calls for an End to Arms Shipments to Israel (Canadian Labour Congress, October 28, 2026).
