Four days after Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada supports the U.S. actions in Iran, he said that support comes "with regret," as they demonstrated the continued decline of the rules-based international order.
Taking questions from reporters for the first time since the U.S. strikes began on Saturday, Carney also said it appears the strikes broke international law.
"We were not informed in advance, we were not asked to participate," Carney told reporters travelling with him in Australia. "Prima facie, it appears that these actions are inconsistent with international law."
Carney was speaking on Wednesday morning in Sydney and Tuesday afternoon in Ottawa.
This past weekend, Carney broke with most European allies by unequivocally endorsing American strikes on Iran, which have since been joined by Israel.
"Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from threatening international peace and security," Carney said in a speech at the Canada-India Growth and Investment Forum in Mumbai on Saturday.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, who was with Carney in India on the weekend, told a business luncheon in Toronto on Tuesday about the discussion with Carney that led to Canada's initial statement, shortly after it got word of the attacks. "I was actually in a room with my deputy minister and some members of his team, and then he came in, and we had the conversation about our approach," she said.
Anand noted Canada has not had diplomatic relations with Iran for 15 years because of human rights abuses and state-sponsored terrorism, and that 18 months ago, Canada declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity.
"So we had a very strongly held view that was really in place last June during the 12-day war that has at its foundation that nuclear. Proliferation by Iran is unacceptable. At the same time, we want to make sure that we are standing for civilian lives and civilian infrastructure that is necessary to preserve those lives."
Some Liberal MPs challenged Canada's support for the war, saying Canada must stand up for the protection of civilians and territorial sovereignty even when it involves adversarial states.
In Australia, Carney said that while Washington proceeded without engaging with the United Nations, the U.S. is responding to serious, repeated violations of international law by the Iranian regime. Now that the military operation has begun, Carney said he supports efforts to end Iran's nuclear program and its decades-long program of state-sponsored terrorism.
"We would not have been in a position ... to take a judgment that met our standards if we had been asked to participate. We weren't. We haven't made that formal judgment. It's for others to make those judgments," Carney said.
"We were dealing with the world as it is."
The prime minister added that the U.S. and Israel must "respect the rules of international engagement" and called on Iran to stop its strikes against civilians across the Middle East.
Global Affairs Canada says more than 97,000 Canadians are registered in the Middle East.
They include a group of 16 Queen’s University students and one faculty member. The university says they're safe in Doha after trying to make a connecting flight in Qatar following a biology field course in Sri Lanka.
"The situation is very volatile and very real, in terms of the potential for human life to be lost across the region, and that is our main concern, always," Anand told the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Tuesday.
"We would like to play a role in the cessation of hostilities and the diplomatic resolution to the future result between these countries. It is a role that we are seeking to continually play.”
Anand said Tuesday she had asked Oman for permission to access its airspace "if necessary, for Canadian citizens to get out." She noted Oman still had "viable" airspace as of Tuesday morning.
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it was preparing military and charter flights for Americans who want to leave the Middle East, a move followed by some other nations.
Anand's office said the minister is urging Canadians to leave the region on their own means. It said there is no current plan for Ottawa to co-ordinate evacuations, either by chartering commercial airlines or using military aircraft.
Anand said she has been in touch with multiple foreign ministers from the Persian Gulf and broader Middle East to ensure "that there are possibilities for Canadians to have supports in those countries."
Earlier Tuesday, Defence Minister David McGuinty said Canadian military personnel in the Middle East were out of harm’s way. When he was asked how many Canadian military personnel are in the region, the minister said, "Some."
"They are all fine, out of harm's way, and it's something that we're watching very carefully," McGuinty told reporters in Sydney, Australia, where he was on an official visit with Prime Minister Carney.
His department would not offer any more detail.
"Due to operational security imperatives, we will not provide a breakdown on the specific locations and number of Canadian Armed Forces personnel in the region at this time," wrote department spokesman Kened Sadiku.
The Department of National Defence has previously listed the number of Canadian personnel stationed at an American airbase in Qatar, and its soldiers have been posted recently to Kuwait and Bahrain.
Carney spoke Tuesday with Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and thanked him for protecting at least 24,500 Canadians in that country, which includes Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
McGuinty said the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a positive development.
"Ayatollah Khamenei has been for many, many decades a very, very powerful force for evil in Iran and in the region," he said.
Anand has said it would require "regime change" in Iran for Canada to re-establish the diplomatic relations that a previous government severed in 2012.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
