Defence Minister David McGuinty said Monday that Canada “will not be participating” in the war in Iran after Prime Minister Mark Carney last week did not rule out the possibility of Canadian military involvement.
Speaking at an unrelated media event in Ottawa, McGuinty added that Canada has not yet decided to join its NATO allies in offering assistance to Persian Gulf nations that have come under attack by Iran.
“Clearly the situation in Iran is extremely serious,” McGuinty told reporters. “It’s one we’ve been watching since the beginning.
“It’s important for Canadians to know that Canada was not consulted before the action undertaken by Israel and the United States. Canada was not asked to comment, Canada has not participated and Canada will not be participating.”
McGuinty’s comment echoed the Prime Minister’s Office summary of a late Sunday meeting of the government’s incident response group to discuss the situation in the Middle East, which McGuinty said Monday he participated in.
“Canada was not consulted, did not participate, and has no plans to participate in the offensive actions against Iran that are being undertaken by the U.S. and Israel,” the PMO readout stated.
In Australia on March 4, Carney said the notion of Canadian participation was a “fundamental hypothetical” but said he could not “categorically rule out participation” — particularly if allies needed defending.
Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan told reporters at a defence and security conference in Ottawa last week that she and her NATO counterparts would be meeting to consider helping Gulf states defend themselves against bombing from Iran.
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She said the Canadian Armed Forces would present a recommendation to the government after the meeting, which took place Friday.
McGuinty said Monday that “a number of NATO members have decided to provide some assistance to neighbouring countries in the immediate vicinity of Iran.”
“Canada has made no such decision,” he added. “It’s something that we’re monitoring carefully.”
A number of European nations including France and the United Kingdom have deployed additional military assets to the region, including air defences and warships.
McGuinty said Carignan and other NATO military leaders were monitoring the Iran war’s impact on the alliance’s military readiness and ammunition supplies, including how that may affect the ability to assist in the war in Ukraine.
The House of Commons was set to hold a debate Monday evening on Canada’s approach to the war in Iran and its impact on Canadians abroad. Carney will not be participating.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre earlier Monday accused Carney of contradicting himself on Canada’s position, which Poilievre said no one understands.
Carney last week walked back his initial statement of support for the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran, saying the position was taken “with regret” due to a potential violation of international law.
Asked if he supported the U.S. and Israeli strikes, Poilievre said Conservatives support replacing Iran’s “terrorist regime with a democratically elected and peaceful regime,” although there have been conflicting statements from the U.S. administration on whether regime change was the goal of the war.
“As for Canada’s role in it, we’re not aware of any specific requests that the prime minister has received,” Poilievre added.
“If he has, we’d encourage him to share that information with all Canadians so we can have a debate about what we should do.”
Poilievre said Canada should be focused on what it can control at home, particularly on energy. He said Conservatives were demanding an emergency debate about how the conflict is affecting global energy supplies and how Canada can help solve the issue.
McGuinty said the federal government, for now, remains focused on the safety of Canadians in the Middle East and facilitating transport out of the region for those who wish to leave.
“The situation is serious,” he said. “It’s one that’s evolving, one that’s iterative, one that is difficult to predict. So we are, as DND (Department of National Defence) and the Canadian Armed Forces, watching it carefully, and in fact, we met with the Incident Response Group yesterday with the prime minister and five or six ministers to review the situation.”
Global Affairs Canada said Sunday that, out of the nearly 110,000 Canadians registered with the government who are in the Middle East, 9,185 have made requests for assistance and 5,267 have asked for help to leave the region.
The government has been using multiple methods of transportation, including booking commercial flight seats and ground transportation, to get people out. Those in Iran have been forced to travel to neighbouring countries where they can receive consular assistance.
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