On Friday last week, Global Affairs Canada published an official advisory telling Canadian businesses to stay away from an entire category of lawful commerce. The document warns of “significant legal, financial and reputational risks” tied to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and advises companies against “investments, financial transactions, procurement, purchases and tourism” connected to them. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand framed this warning as an extension of Canada’s “long-standing position” that the settlements are “illegal under international law” and “constitute a serious obstacle to a just and lasting peace.”

This advisory threatens to sanction both Israelis abroad and Canadians.

This is a serious problem. This decision does not come from a Canadian court or statute. It was not made by members of Parliament. It comes from Ottawa deciding, on its own authority, that the matter is closed. There is an important distinction Ottawa is blurring: Canada’s foreign-policy position is not the same thing as Canadian law. Parliament has debated the issue. NDP MP Heather McPherson introduced Motion M-28 in March calling for, among other things, targeted sanctions connected to settlements. But Parliament has not enacted a general prohibition on Canadians doing business connected to Israeli settlements. This matters.

The advisory’s argument appears to rest on a single premise: Israeli settlements are “illegal under international law.” This claim rests on a contested interpretation of Article 49(6) of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention , which says an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” The treaty does not define “transfer” in that provision or expressly say civilians are prohibited from moving voluntarily. The legal dispute is over how broadly “transfer” should be interpreted and what degree of government encouragement, assistance or involvement is sufficient to constitute one. Credentialed international lawyers have disputed these questions for decades.

In the advisory, Ottawa points to the United Nations as the source of its reasoning. Fair enough. But let’s be precise about what the UN has actually said and done.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334 calls the settlements a violation of international law. But it was passed under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, not Chapter VII, which authorizes enforcement. Whatever diplomatic and legal significance Resolution 2334 carries internationally, it does not itself make settlement commerce a crime under Canadian statute. A UN Security Council resolution addressed to states does not, by itself, make it illegal under Canadian law for a Canadian to buy a bottle of wine, for instance, produced in a West Bank settlement. Wine is not unique, it is simply a useful example because settlement-produced wine has already been tested in Canadian courts Canada has dealt with precisely such wines before, the resulting Canadian litigation concerned how they could be labelled, not whether Canadians were prohibited from buying them.

Ottawa’s strongest argument is the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion . But an advisory opinion is not legally binding, and several judges issued separate or dissenting opinions. A government may consider it, but it should not relay it to its citizens as Canadian law they break at their peril.

Here is the honest truth. There is a strong international consensus against the settlements, but there is also a decades-old legal dispute. Ottawa can acknowledge both. What it cannot do is turn international consensus into settled Canadian law.

None of this requires minimizing settler violence. There have been serious and documented attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and those responsible should be investigated, prosecuted and, where justified, sanctioned. Canada has already sanctioned specific individuals and entities connected to extremist settler violence. That proves the point: target those responsible through defined legal mechanisms. Do not use their crimes to cast suspicion over every Israeli who lives beyond the Green Line , or every Canadian who lawfully does business with one.

Ottawa knows the difference. It has not asked Parliament to make settlement commerce illegal. It has not pursued a Canadian court ruling that it is unlawful. Instead, it is using an advisory to discourage conduct Parliament has not prohibited. This advisory casts a cloud of legal risk over a sweeping range of otherwise lawful activity, from investment and purchasing to tourism, without actually prohibiting any of it. It is prohibition by insinuation.

Then comes the part written to be skimmed past. Businesses that decline to comply “may result in the withdrawal of Trade Commissioner Service support and potential future support from Export Development Canada and the Canadian Commercial Corporation.”

This consequence is real. A Canadian business engaged in commerce that no Canadian law prohibits can risk losing federal support simply because Ottawa considers that commerce connected, even “indirectly,” to a settlement. But what does “indirectly” mean? A supplier? An investment fund with distant exposure? Ottawa does not draw the line. Businesses are left to guess, and the safest choice is obvious: walk away. That is how an advisory becomes a chill on lawful commerce without Parliament ever banning it.

You can hold any view you like about the West Bank and still see what this is. This is not about whether settlements are wise, good or just. It is about who gets to decide that something is illegal, by what process and with what accountability. Governments confident in their legal grounds pass laws. Governments that suspect they would lose the vote, or lose in court, issue advisories.

Ottawa reached a verdict against a defendant it never charged, in a case no court has heard, and now bills Canadian businesses to enforce it.

If this trade is illegal, prove it. Table the legislation. Name the conduct. Define it. Put it to a vote, and defend it before a judge who can strike it down. That is what the rule of law requires.

Until then, stop leaning on citizens you are unwilling to legislate against. Withdraw the advisory.

National Post

Matthew Taub is the founder and executive director of Unapologetically Jewish. A nationally registered non-profit fighting antisemitism.

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U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner recently said that Gaza will not be rebuilt until it’s demilitarized. His reasoning was straightforward: no one wants to pour billions of dollars into reconstruction only to see the territory taken over by terrorists or destroyed again. He is right about the problem. But demilitarization alone will not solve it.

Taking away the terrorist’s weapons is necessary. But so is asking what made generations of young people willing to carry them in the first place.

If Gaza is to have a different future, reconstruction and rehabilitation must happen together. One to rebuild the physical environment, and the other to rebuild the institutions and ideas that shape future generations. I know this because I grew up in Gaza.

In fourth grade, my Islamic education teacher called me to the front of the classroom. He ran toward me, performed a military-style roll, then stood with his hands positioned around an imaginary rifle.

“You need to learn these movements,” he told us. We needed to become soldiers, he said. The war against the Jews would continue until the end of time, and killing Jews, according to my teacher, was an act of worship.

I was around nine years old at the time. The same teacher condemned the Oslo Accords and called the Palestinian Authority traitors. I did not know what the Oslo Accords were. I did not even know where Oslo was. I knew who I was supposed to hate before I even understood the conflict.

By secondary school, the imaginary rifle became a real Kalashnikov. We had a class in which we learned to disassemble and reassemble weapons. The instructor belonged to Hamas’s security apparatus. Once, his rifle accidentally discharged and a bullet tore through a classroom wall.

My father was furious when he learned that I was being trained with weapons. He went to the school and objected. Two days later, the principal humiliated me during morning assembly, calling me weak because I had brought my father instead of behaving like the “men” who fight to liberate Palestine.

My father understood something my school did not: patriotism did not require turning his son into a soldier. This is why the debate over Gaza’s reconstruction cannot be limited to buildings.

A school is not rehabilitated because someone replaces its windows, pours new concrete and installs new desks. What matters is what happens after children sit at those desks.

The United States and its partners therefore need to think about Gaza’s reconstruction in two inseparable tracks: demilitarization and deradicalization, physical reconstruction and civic rehabilitation.

That does not mean erasing Palestinian identity or political aspirations. Palestinians should be free to advocate for statehood, challenge Israeli policies and tell their own history. Deradicalization cannot become a euphemism for political submission.

It should mean something much more specific: ending the institutional glorification of violence, religious hatred and the militarization of children. Washington should make that principle part of any reconstruction framework.

International funding for education should require independent reviews of the curricula and teaching materials. Teachers and administrators should be screened for involvement in armed organizations. Schools should be strictly separated from military activities. Religious instruction should not be used to dehumanize Jews or sanctify violence against civilians.

Teacher training matters just as much as textbooks. A beautifully written curriculum means little if the adult standing in front of the classroom teaches children that compromise is treason and death in battle is the highest form of achievement.

Gaza will also need alternatives, not simply prohibitions. Young Palestinians need civic institutions, sports, arts, entrepreneurship, political debate and education that gives them ways to pursue dignity and purpose outside armed movements. Deradicalization succeeds when another identity becomes more compelling: student, engineer, entrepreneur, artist, citizen.

And Palestinian parents who resist militarization need protection and support. My father was one of them. He did not need an outsider to teach him that putting a Kalashnikov in his son’s hands was wrong. He needed a system that stood behind him when he said “no.” Instead, the system humiliated his child.

That distinction should matter enormously to Americans and others throughout the West. Gaza is not a population of two million irredeemable extremists. It is a society in which people have lived for decades under institutions and political forces that have profoundly shaped its citizens, starting from their formative years in the classroom. Yet institutions can change.

Kushner is right that rebuilding Gaza without demilitarizing it risks financing another war. But removing rifles and tunnels addresses only half of the problem.

I remember an imaginary rifle in my teacher’s hands when I was nine. Years later, there was a real one in mine. The distance between those two rifles is where Gaza’s future will be decided. Reconstruction must begin there.

National Post

Moumen Al-Natour is a Palestinian lawyer from Gaza and a co-organizer of the 2019 “We Want to Live” street demonstrations against Hamas.

• Mike Fegelman: It is up to Gazans to stop the fighting
• For Hamas, there can be no ‘day after’ for Gaza without … Hamas!

U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner recently said that Gaza will not be rebuilt until it’s demilitarized. His reasoning was straightforward: no one wants to pour billions of dollars into reconstruction only to see the territory taken over by terrorists or destroyed again. He is right about the problem. But demilitarization alone will not solve it.

Taking away the terrorist’s weapons is necessary. But so is asking what made generations of young people willing to carry them in the first place.

If Gaza is to have a different future, reconstruction and rehabilitation must happen together. One to rebuild the physical environment, and the other to rebuild the institutions and ideas that shape future generations. I know this because I grew up in Gaza.

In fourth grade, my Islamic education teacher called me to the front of the classroom. He ran toward me, performed a military-style roll, then stood with his hands positioned around an imaginary rifle.

“You need to learn these movements,” he told us. We needed to become soldiers, he said. The war against the Jews would continue until the end of time, and killing Jews, according to my teacher, was an act of worship.

I was around nine years old at the time. The same teacher condemned the Oslo Accords and called the Palestinian Authority traitors. I did not know what the Oslo Accords were. I did not even know where Oslo was. I knew who I was supposed to hate before I even understood the conflict.

By secondary school, the imaginary rifle became a real Kalashnikov. We had a class in which we learned to disassemble and reassemble weapons. The instructor belonged to Hamas’s security apparatus. Once, his rifle accidentally discharged and a bullet tore through a classroom wall.

My father was furious when he learned that I was being trained with weapons. He went to the school and objected. Two days later, the principal humiliated me during morning assembly, calling me weak because I had brought my father instead of behaving like the “men” who fight to liberate Palestine.

My father understood something my school did not: patriotism did not require turning his son into a soldier. This is why the debate over Gaza’s reconstruction cannot be limited to buildings.

A school is not rehabilitated because someone replaces its windows, pours new concrete and installs new desks. What matters is what happens after children sit at those desks.

The United States and its partners therefore need to think about Gaza’s reconstruction in two inseparable tracks: demilitarization and deradicalization, physical reconstruction and civic rehabilitation.

That does not mean erasing Palestinian identity or political aspirations. Palestinians should be free to advocate for statehood, challenge Israeli policies and tell their own history. Deradicalization cannot become a euphemism for political submission.

It should mean something much more specific: ending the institutional glorification of violence, religious hatred and the militarization of children. Washington should make that principle part of any reconstruction framework.

International funding for education should require independent reviews of the curricula and teaching materials. Teachers and administrators should be screened for involvement in armed organizations. Schools should be strictly separated from military activities. Religious instruction should not be used to dehumanize Jews or sanctify violence against civilians.

Teacher training matters just as much as textbooks. A beautifully written curriculum means little if the adult standing in front of the classroom teaches children that compromise is treason and death in battle is the highest form of achievement.

Gaza will also need alternatives, not simply prohibitions. Young Palestinians need civic institutions, sports, arts, entrepreneurship, political debate and education that gives them ways to pursue dignity and purpose outside armed movements. Deradicalization succeeds when another identity becomes more compelling: student, engineer, entrepreneur, artist, citizen.

And Palestinian parents who resist militarization need protection and support. My father was one of them. He did not need an outsider to teach him that putting a Kalashnikov in his son’s hands was wrong. He needed a system that stood behind him when he said “no.” Instead, the system humiliated his child.

That distinction should matter enormously to Americans and others throughout the West. Gaza is not a population of two million irredeemable extremists. It is a society in which people have lived for decades under institutions and political forces that have profoundly shaped its citizens, starting from their formative years in the classroom. Yet institutions can change.

Kushner is right that rebuilding Gaza without demilitarizing it risks financing another war. But removing rifles and tunnels addresses only half of the problem.

I remember an imaginary rifle in my teacher’s hands when I was nine. Years later, there was a real one in mine. The distance between those two rifles is where Gaza’s future will be decided. Reconstruction must begin there.

National Post

Moumen Al-Natour is a Palestinian lawyer from Gaza and a co-organizer of the 2019 “We Want to Live” street demonstrations against Hamas.

• Mike Fegelman: It is up to Gazans to stop the fighting
• For Hamas, there can be no ‘day after’ for Gaza without … Hamas!

If crisis management is about preventing a bad situation from getting worse, the federal government deserves full marks for its decision to adjust the list of American goods that will be subject to tariffs.

Late on Wednesday, Finance Canada announced that it was removing U.S. seafood and fish products from the list of tariffed goods, “based on feedback.”

That feedback was white-hot anger expressed by Canadian seafood producers, who threatened to go public with their frustration, creating a breach in the united Team Canada front.

On a Finance Canada call with stakeholders on Tuesday, producers expressed concerns that the government had pledged to impose a 25 per cent tariff on U.S. seafood, including Maine lobster, even though the list of U.S. targets did not include Canadian seafood products.

The producers were terrified that the Americans would respond with a 50 per cent tariff that would kill the market for the 80 per cent of Canadian aquaculture products that go south.

From the perspective of exacting maximum political pressure on Donald Trump, the imposition of a tariff on Maine lobster was inspired. The seat of Republican Senator Susan Collins is up for grabs in November’s midterm elections and it is considered a toss-up by most predictive markets.

A relieved Collins posted on X Thursday that she appreciated Canada’s decision to remove seafood and fish products from its retaliatory tariff list.

“I urge the U.S. to respond to this show of good faith from our Canadian friends by returning to the negotiating table and working to amicably resolve this trade dispute,” she said.

I very much appreciate Canada’s decision to remove seafood and fish products from its retaliatory tariff list. These tariffs would have caused tremendous harm to Maine’s lobstermen, disrupting one of their most important markets during the fall fishing season.

I urge the U.S. to…

— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) August 27, 2026

A 25 per cent tariff imposed by Canada would likely prove to be highly damaging, given that up to 60 per cent of the state’s lobster catch is sent to Atlantic Canada to be processed. Canada has historically bought around $400 million of Maine’s catch. “Maine lobstermen and the industry as a whole didn’t start this fight. We are just the ones getting hit with the bill,” wrote the MaineWonk, a popular policy commentator based in northern Maine.

However, the Canadian industry argued that not only would jobs involved with processing and storing the $1 billion of American seafood imports be at risk but the viability of an aquaculture sector that exports $4 billion south would be in question if the Americans retaliated.

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance is understood to have written to Finance Canada, giving the government 48 hours to roll back the policy or it would consider going public with its concerns.

While exerting maximum political pressure was one of the competing objectives considered by the government in drawing up its list of targets, the priority, at least according to Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, is to protect jobs and businesses.

The latest news from Canada-U.S. Minister Dominic LeBlanc is that talks might resume if the Americans “clarify” their position on sticking points like language and culture policies. That followed a CBC interview with the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in which he said that such issues were not a red line.

In such an environment, imposing tariffs in sectors that have not been targeted by the White House would be unnecessarily provocative – and potentially costly to Canada.

The decision to show flexibility in response to Canadian businesses, while being clear that the dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs are immutable until a deal is reached, is smart politics.

jivison@criffel.ca
Twitter.com/IvisonJ

As a backup who comes off the bench, Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever is not the most talented player in the Women’s National Basketball Association. There is little doubt, however, that she has emerged this season as the most renowned.

And there’s no question that she has played a major role in the league’s soaring attendance figures and television ratings.

At 30, the 6-foot-1 guard/forward is averaging only about eight points a game. Yet, chiefly because of her and teammate Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has ascended into considerable prominence.

Recently, the first-year Toronto Tempo, not a formidable team in the WNBA, drew an atypical decent crowd because the opponent was the Fever. Toronto fans would be hard-pressed to name two players with the Tempo, but identifying Cunningham and Clark of Indiana has turned into a breeze for even the most casual of WNBA followers.

Not that the duo is popular with Toronto fans. No, Clark was booed in Toronto because, well, she’s a truly terrific superstar in the WNBA, and the booing is a sign of respect, much the way Bobby Orr or LeBron James would be booed during their respective games in Toronto, and elsewhere.

But the booing of Cunningham struck me as bizarre, to say the least. She wasn’t being targeted in Toronto because she is Clark’s on-court protector. Nor was she being booed because of her delightful personality, swagger, beauty and marketability.

She was being booed because she had the audacity to tell ESPN in a much-publicized interview that she is opposed to transgender athletes playing in women’s sports. Even women in Toronto booed Cunningham. Weird, eh? Women booing a woman for sticking up for women.

Cunningham said she wasn’t bothered even slightly by the booing in Toronto. “I’m here to extend love,” she told reporters. “But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

She is bang-on and, after doing some in-depth research on the subject, I wholeheartedly agree with Cunningham.

Allowing biological men, with their undeniable physical advantages in strength, speed and endurance, to compete against biological females undermines the progress being made in women’s sports.

Dr. Gregory Brown, a professor of exercise science at the University of Nebraska, has produced more than 60 peer-reviewed publications for academic journals. He wrote last January that “Female athletes have been injured and deprived of roster spots, starting positions, awards and championships in their own category, all due to the mistaken belief that a transgender identity somehow negates the well-documented performance advantages conferred by male sex.”

At every level, from school sports to the Olympics to the pros, opportunities for success for females have been diminished when transgender individuals are permitted to participate in their competitions.

Dr. Brown noted that female athletes have lost scholarships, medals, playing spots, and even top salaries as pros, when their sports have been co-opted by male trans athletes.

There is a view, held by many who follow the WNBA, that there are male trans athletes recognized as women in the league. Cunningham has mildly suggested the testing of WNBA players to determine their sex at birth.

The league’s administrators are not only balking at the suggestion but reprimanding Cunningham and warning her to be silent on the issue.

Yet Cunningham isn’t simply talking out of her hat. She is honest. She tells it like it is. She is wiser than your average athlete. She is in the process of finishing a book that will sell well, at least with the anti-woke enthusiasts.

She is pleasant, amicable and multi-talented, a bright shining light in the historically underrated and underappreciated world of professional women’s sports. She should be a welcome part of a league trying to grow.

With her ability to utilize social media, her gift of gab and her light-hearted approach to friendly and fun-loving messaging, she is irrefutably a marketing guru.

The folks who run and follow the WNBA should cease and desist from admonishing her and, yes, booing her. Rather, she should be — and I don’t often say this when it comes to athletes — exalted and thanked. She truly is one of a kind.

National Post

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