The Liberal government expressed regret about the “adverse impact” of its own pause on some military exports to Israel in a July 2024 meeting with Israeli ambassador Iddo Moed, briefing notes obtained by The Maple show.
The document was prepared four months after Parliament voted in favour of a non-binding resolution calling for Canada to stop shipping military goods to Israel, which is committing a genocide in Gaza.
Members of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government voted in favour of the pause on new export permits largely because of political pressure from the NDP and grassroots campaigns targeting Liberal MPs across the country.
After the vote, the Liberal government paused approvals on some new military export permits, while quietly allowing those for goods related to Israel’s Iron Dome missile system and most items shipped via the United States to continue.
One of the Liberal government’s “top messages” for Moed prepared for then-parliamentary secretary to the defence minister, Marie-France Lalonde, pointed to the “adverse impact the pause on export permits is having on both our respective countries.”
The briefing notes also instructed Lalonde to emphasize to Moed “that Israel is a key partner in the region” and to focus on “relationship building” and garnering “support and solidarity for Israel.”
“(The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces) highly values the defence relationship with Israel, which remains a key interlocutor for us in the Middle East,” the notes said.
The notes also told Lalonde to thank Moed “for your personal efforts in facilitating the evacuation of Canadians and their extended family members from Israel and the Gaza Strip.”
This expression of gratitude stands in contrast to comments made my then-immigration minister Marc Miller, who in March 2024 said his conversations with Moed about evacuating Canadians and their family members from Gaza were “frustrating ... on many levels.”
At the time of Miller’s meeting with Moed, no applicants had made it to Canada under the Liberal government’s special visa program for Palestinians in Gaza with family ties to Canada.
By July 2025, at least five applicants to the program died while waiting to escape from Gaza during Israel’s attacks.
Israel’s genocide had at the time of Lalonde’s meeting with Moed killed a confirmed total of at least 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza, although the true number was almost certainly much higher. Israel was on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice, where the case is still ongoing.
The briefing notes expressed concern about the “humanitarian impacts on civilians” caused by Israel’s military assault on Gaza, but made no mention of the Liberal government’s official calls for a ceasefire at that time.
The unredacted sections of the notes obtained by The Maple said nothing about the genocide case against Israel or the extensive evidence of it committing war crimes in Gaza.
They also made no mention of Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1, 2024, including Canadian citizen and army veteran Jacob Flickinger.
The notes did, however, “condemn the actions of a former Canadian Armed Forces reservist that was killed by Israeli Security Forces,” which claimed that Zachareah Quraishi attempted to carry out a knife attack near Gaza before they shot him to death in July 2024.
Quraishi’s father rejected Israel’s claims about what happened, but the briefing documents indicate that the federal government had already accepted Israel’s version of events before the RCMP had the chance to investigate the matter.
The documents did not name Quraishi, but stated that: “This individual’s actions do not align with the CAF’s values and ethics, and we condemn them unequivocally.”
The Maple emailed Lalonde, DND, Global Affairs Canada and Israel’s embassy to Canada for comment for this story, but did not receive any responses.
Despite the Liberal government’s pause on some new military export permits, Canadian-made military goods are still being shipped to Israel.
The Liberal government explicitly exempted permits for goods related to Israel’s Iron Dome missile interceptor system, authorizing two new permits related to the Iron Dome worth $37.2 million in February 2025.
Alex Cosh
The total value of military goods that were actually shipped directly from Canada to Israel reached $18.9 million in 2024 and $14.6 million in 2025. However, those figures do not include goods shipped via the U.S., which are not tracked by the federal government and are largely unregulated.
The Liberal government voted against an NDP-sponsored motion last year which would have closed the loophole that allows Canadian-made military goods to be shipped to Israel via the U.S.
In November 2025, the Arms Embargo Now coalition published a report that identified hundreds of shipments of Canadian-made F-35 fighter jet components, other aircraft parts, and explosives and flammable materials to U.S. facilities that supply the Israeli military.
The report also highlighted 433 shipments of Polish-made TNT routed through Port Saguenay, Quebec to U.S. army ammunition plants that make bombs used by Israel in Gaza.
