In less than a week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has gone from supporting U.S. actions against Iran to raising the issue that the U.S. and Israel "acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting with allies, including Canada" to on Wednesday not ruling out Canadian military participation in the conflict.
"He’s been all over the place," Nader Hashemi, a Canadian-born associate professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, told Fox News Digital. "It doesn’t look very good for him or for the government of Canada."
"My own reading is that he’s influenced by public opinion and his understanding of Canada’s national interests and where they lie, and specifically the relationship with the United States at its core. His first statement was very supportive of the American-Israeli attack and then he walked it back two days later when he got a lot of pushback because there was no reference to Canada’s support for international law, rules-based order and the United Nations."
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When asked whether Canada would join the U.S. military against Iran during his visit to Australia on Wednesday, Carney told reporters that "one can never categorically rule out participation" and that Canada "will stand by our allies, when makes sense."
However, former NATO commander and retired Canadian major-general David Fraser told CTV News Channel that it’s "unlikely" that Canada would be drawn into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran unless a member state, such as Turkey, called for assistance under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Carney’s latest comments signal the Canadian prime minister’s desire to ensure that "it doesn’t create a deeper rupture with the United States than already exists," said Hashemi.
Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of the Canadian Conservative Party, summarized the prime minister’s changing position on the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran with a post on X: "We support it, we’re upset about it, we think it’s bad, but also, we might join in."
Her colleague, Michael Chong, the Conservative shadow minister for foreign affairs, told Canadian broadcaster CTV that "supporting the airstrikes and at the same time calling for a secession of those strikes" is "an inherent contradiction."
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Carney has also had pushback from the political left.
After the airstrikes against Iran began, Alexandre Boulerice, foreign affairs critic for the New Democratic Party of Canada, said in a statement that his party "strongly condemns the American and Israeli bombings of Iran" and "deplores the Carney government’s decision to blindly support this dangerous venture by Israel and Donald Trump's administration. We want Canada to be a voice for diplomacy, peace and international law."
During his Australian tour this week, the prime minister said that "hegemons are increasingly acting without constraint or respect for international norms or laws while others bear the consequences."
He also said Canada supports "efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security," but noted that Canada "take[s] this position with regret because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order."
Carney said that "Canada calls for a rapid de-escalation of hostilities and is prepared to assist in achieving this goal."
At a security and defense conference in Ottawa, also this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said that Canada calls "on all sides to respect the rules of international engagement" and that "international law binds all parties" in the Middle East conflict.
The results of an Angus Reid Institute poll, involving 1,619 respondents and released on Tuesday, showed that 49% of Canadians opposed the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran, while 34% were supportive.
