 Grad, coordinator of code in Congress. Here tonight with my co-host, Medea Benjamin, I think Hania Jodot may be joining us at some point. To also co-host, we have an exciting agenda tonight. Canada bans a non, well, passes a non-mining resolution to ban weapons to Israel. So we'll explore that. What that means, that resolution, how to make it stick, how to make it even more powerful. We have some terrific speakers lined up. Libby Davies, a Canadian politician from British Columbia, former member or former house leader for the New Democratic Party. We have Kim Elliott, who grew up in Quebec and is an accomplished researcher and writer. We will have Rachel Small, who's Canada's organizer for World Beyond War. So thank you so much for joining us. And before we begin, I'll review some of our norms. Please show respect for our speakers and participants. Encourage healthy debate, disagree agreeably. Disrespect put downs will not be tolerated. Stay on topic in the chat and let's organize together for peace, all right? So Medea, what's happening on Capitol Hill? Oh my goodness, it's just been a crazy couple of days in terms of what's happening in Gaza. We see this destruction of Shefa Hospital, this horrific killing of patients and doctors and people taking refuge there. We see the killing of the World Central Kitchen, volunteers, seven of them. And at the same time, we're seeing commitments by the Biden administration to send more weapons to Israel. So on the one hand, they talk about wanting to limit the casualties. On the other hand, they announced that they had already finished a deal of sending 1,800, 2,000 pound bombs and 500, 500 pound bombs in the midst of this horrific crisis. And then we hear of a new deal that they're planning a sale of $18 billion worth of weapons. And this is F-15 fighter jets as well as all kinds of missiles. And it's just horrific. So I'm glad we will be taking action after the speakers we have today to say, stop this insanity of sending more weapons to Israel while it is shooting and bombing humanitarian aid workers and of course constantly bombing and killing the people of Rafa and starving them intentionally. Terrific. Yes, I do wanna ask everybody to stay until we hear from our speakers, we'll have a Q and A. Then we'll have our capital calling party or tweeting, posting on Facebook. However, you wanna communicate with House and Senate reps opposition to this weapons package that Medea just mentioned that Biden, there's an in-depth report on CNN about it, how Biden wants to send the $18 billion worth of more weapons right now to Israel in the midst of this genocide. There is some pushback. I call today Congressman Gregory Meeks' office. He is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And I spoke with a person who answered the phone and she seemed very sympathetic and said, yes, I'll take your message. I said, have you been receiving a lot of calls? And she said, oh, yes. I said of concern and opposition and she said, yes. So we really have to amplify our voices, everybody we know to call in, not just to our own Congress member, but to Gregory Meeks' office and Senator Ben Cardin's office. In terms of news updates, I just wanted to share with you that on Monday and Tuesday, the International Court of Justice, which ruled that Israel must stop killing Palestinians and provide massive humanitarian aid, will now take up a case that has been filed by Nicaragua against Germany, which is right behind the United States as a supplier of arms to Israel. The US supplies 69% of Israel's arsenal, Germany, the other 30% and then the other 1%. So this case is very important. They are asking, Nicaragua is asking the court to order Germany to stop sending weapons to Israel. Now you might say, well, the court could say this, the court could say that, but everything counts, right? All of the pressure that we can muster and leverage is super important. And the more we can isolate Germany, the more we can isolate the United States. So we're calling for protests, Code Pink. This is an answer to a call from Palestinians in Germany who you may have seen on the internet are being brutalized at these protests in support of Palestine. They're asking people around the world to show up at German consulates to protest, to send delegations to say, stop arming Israel. And we have a protest plan in Los Angeles. I believe one is underway or being organized in New York. We have consulates in San Francisco, in Houston, in Boston, in Chicago and Los Angeles, Atlanta. If you are in any of those cities and you wanna get involved and help organize something, please email me, marci, m-a-r-c-y at code pink dot o-r-g, m-a-r-c-y at code pink dot o-r-g. All right, with that, we're gonna- I forgot one thing, Marcy. Oh, sure, yeah. Which is I just came back from being outside the White House. It's cold and rainy and day today, but a bunch of people came out because the president was supposed to have an iftar with the Muslim community. And in the past, they've had hundreds of people from the Muslim community to these gatherings. This time, they could barely find anybody who would come to the White House. And so they reduced it to a group of 12 people. And I don't know if those 12 people even showed up because there was a report that one of them was a doctor who came back recently from Gaza, went and handed in a letter from a young girl in Gaza who lost her family and then walked out of the meeting. So it is quite remarkable that the president of the United States can even get muster up a group of Muslims to come and break bread with him because they are too ashamed to be seen with him while he is so complicit in what Israel is doing. He is a disgrace. And I want to remind us all that before LBJ said, announced he would not run for reelection, his poll ratings were about 36%. Biden's has been as low as 37%. And one of the reasons why LBJ said he didn't want to run for reelection was he was tired of being bird dog. He couldn't go anywhere. Just as Biden cannot go anywhere now without being confronted with his complicity. So everything that we do is important. And we may feel like, oh, could I do? This is so frustrating, it's horrible. But everything we do matters. So do stay with us. We're gonna make those calls tonight. So with that, let's get started with our program, how Canada passed a non-binding resolution to ban weapons to Israel and to join other countries who are not sending weapons to Israel. We'll hear from those who were involved in this campaign on not just how they made this happen but how they can amplify it and make it even stronger and make it stick. So with that, Nadia, please introduce our first guest. Well, I'm delighted to introduce our first guest because I am a great fan of hers. I actually knew her father before I knew her. I'm dating myself here. But Libby Davis, when we were doing a vigil and a fast in front of the White House against the war in Iraq before the US had invaded, we were saying, why can't we get any member of Congress to come out here and stand with us? We've got 435, we can't get one. And guess who came and stood with us? Libby Davis, when she was a member of the Canadian Parliament. So I'll always be indebted to you for that, Libby. Libby is a Canadian politician from British Columbia. She was a member of Parliament for Vancouver East from 1997 to 2015, House leader of the New Democratic Party from 2003 to 2011, and deputy leader of the party from 2007 to 2015, leading advocates for social justice. During her 18 years in the House of Commons, she gave voice to the voiceless on such issues as the plight of the Littemite survivors, LGBTQ rights, affordable housing, missing and murdered women's, safe injection sites, and of course, the need to stop wars. Thank you, Libby, great to have you on with us. Oh, wonderful, Medea, so lovely to see you. So do you want me just to go ahead? Yes, please. Okay, all right, well, hello, everybody. It's just delightful to join you. I'm a huge fan of Code Pink. I'm here with my partner, Kim Elliott tonight, who you'll also hear from. We both know Code Pink and Medea and all that you do and a special shout out to Anne Wright. I see you on the call, Anne. You're just a wonderful hero to us as well. So yes, let me get right to it. So I was a Canadian member of parliament in Ottawa, which is our nation's capital. And although I'm no longer there, I retired in 2015. I'm still very active politically. And in Canada, I mean, it's not the same as the US, but certainly there is the same pressures from the Zionist lobby, from the pro-Israel lobby and Canadian politicians that are under a lot of pressure on both sides. And when I was first in parliament, things were pretty open. There was a lot of dialogue. And Kim will, I think, say more about some of the events that used to be hosted on Parliament Hill. And then we went through about a decade of darkness with Stephen Harper, a conservative prime minister. And things were just totally shut down. And there was like self-censorship and there was practically nothing on Palestine going on. Things have recently improved. But since October the 7th, the pro-Palestinian community, the allies of Palestine in Canada, have really been organizing. And there's been tremendous pressure on the members of parliament. And the party that I'm with, the New Democratic Party, as Madea mentioned, in Ottawa, under our parliamentary system, the opposition party, it's only about three times a year that they get what's called an opposition-day motion. I want to put this in context so you can understand the significance. So they get three times a year where they get to place something up for debate in the House that will automatically be voted on. So it's very competitive what a party puts up because they only get three times a year to do it. And I know there was a lot of debate within the NDP about what they would choose for their upcoming opposition-day motion, which was in March of this year. The actual motion was voted on March 18th. So very recently, and they chose to put forward a motion on Palestine. I actually don't, Kim might be able to find the motion to put it in the chat, but it was a very good motion. It covered nine different areas from exports, imports, to recognition of the state of Palestine, to a ceasefire, to restoring unrefunding. It was a pretty comprehensive motion. Now, what happened was that the motion actually was debated all day in the House on March, probably a day before March 18th. I can't remember if it was voted on that same night. And what happened was it ended up that the motion did get approved by the House by a vote of 204 to 117. So clearly all the conservative members from the conservative party voted against the motion. And of course, the debate was fairly acrimonious. It was full of toxic rhetoric and lies and propaganda. But nevertheless, as I was on a call recently with a number of Palestinians and one of the activists on that call said that he believed that we won the narrative. And I realized that was such an important thing. Just the debate alone was a critical thing to win the narrative in such challenging divisive times when it's even hard to get the points across. So that was sort of a victory in and of itself was just having the debate. And I think overall winning the narrative. Now, what happened was at the very end of when the debate was over and just like minutes before the vote, the liberal government, the federal government, which is the liberal party here in Canada, they started negotiating with the NDP to amend the motion. Otherwise they would have voted against it. And I mean, there are various versions of what happened. But the fact is that I think the governing party, they realized that maybe 80 of their own members were gonna vote for the motion even though they were being told not to vote for the motion as it was because it was fairly strongly worded. And so they started negotiating and the motion did get watered down. And of course, people are unhappy about that. I mean, you guys definitely see it as a victory from where you're sitting, but within Canada, obviously activists, Palestinians, Palestinian allies, people were very disappointed that the motion got watered down. Nevertheless, eight of the nine actions were approved in some form, including export of armaments and weapons to Israel. So that was very much a victory and including eventually the recognition of a Palestinian statehood. So that's also very important. So although the motion was voted down, I see it as a victory because one, there was a debate. Two, we won the vote. And three, it kind of gives people a sense of the power that they have to really change the political agenda, to change the political landscape. The context of this is that there were all kinds of organizations organizing around not just this motion but other issues around Palestine. And we've had record numbers of people signing official parliamentary petitions. I don't know if you have the same thing in Congress, but in Canada, there's an official process for getting a petition tabled in the House of Commons in the Canadian Parliament. You have to meet certain criteria. So some of the petitions that have been coming forward, in fact, we've had the highest number of any signatures of any petition in the Canadian history of Parliament. That is unbelievable and just shows us the power of one level of organizing. Of course, being out on the streets is important. Lobbying is important, but even using a petition process is another level, another element of what needs to be done. So I think this, I'm not sure what this particular one had, but the one that got the highest, it was getting on for 100,000 people. Now, that may not sound so much to our American friends here. You've got to consider that Canada's population is basically the same population as California. So our sort of scope and all of that is much smaller. So getting 100,000 signatures on a petition is pretty amazing. And I think it's helped sort of open up an idea to people that when we organize, we can really accomplish things. And there's no question whatsoever that members of Parliament were swayed by what their constituents were saying in local communities that they finally were beginning to get the message and they were realizing that they voted against this motion, they were gonna be in big trouble. Now, I wanted to comment on one thing, Marcy, just quickly, when you said a couple of times the motion is non-binding. Now, this is correct. An opposition motion is not legally binding it. It's not like a bill, it's not like a piece of legislation. However, it is an expression of the will of the House. That has fortitude, that has power behind it. And in fact, the day after the motion was approved, the Minister of Foreign Affairs did announce that she would uphold the motion and she would be implementing the terms and the demands in the motion that was approved. So that also was a victory. Finally, I wanna say this motion was not just voted by sort of the regular back bench members of parliament, but also by members of the cabinet and also by the Prime Minister, Pierre, sorry, Justin Trudeau and also the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Jolie. So that too was a victory, that they were compelled, they were compelled to sort of see the writing on the wall, so to speak and they realized that they had to move something. Now, one could be crass about it and saying, well, they're just being crass about it. They're just responding to some public pressure. They're just trying to let off some steam. But however one sees this, I would see it in context as a victory of, yes, what more needs to be done, that we can do this. We can use this as an avenue to bring a voice to parliament, to have people's concerns and issues heard and to actually get something approved through the Canadian parliament that is now going to be upheld by the Canadian government. So I'll stop there and I don't know if you wanna hear from Kim next or whether however you want to play it. Thank you so much Libby Davies for that comprehensive look at what happened in Canada. I mean, I just, and so in awe of the organizing efforts of the Canadian activists because you are an inspiration to us absolutely to consider that the parliament passed this and said, we don't wanna spend another dime on arming genocide is fantastic. So with that, let me introduce our next speaker, Kim Elliott grew up in an agricultural community in rural Quebec, Quebec. She is an accomplished researcher, writer and editor. Kim Elliott was executive director of the award winning national nonprofit news organization rabble.ca from 2005 to 2023. Kim has had a lifelong commitment to social justice and human rights advocacy and has organized campaigns, conferences and events, including leading a Canadian parliamentary delegation to the Middle East. I'd love to hear about that too. So with that, yep, the floor is yours. Well, thank you so much, Marcy. And it's such an honor to be here with all of you. I just so love the work Code Pink does and I love how you guys are, I mean, how you innovate and constantly renew yourself. Every time I open my TikTok, I see Medea reporting from all the ground in Washington. And it's just, I mean, it's just awesome. It's inspiring. And so I'm, you know, Libby's, Libby spoke from the position of being, you know, a member of parliament, from the political perspective of being in parliament. And I just wanted to share a few words about first about, sort of the context that we've lived through, that I've lived through in terms of being an activist working with parliamentarians on the outside and trying to change what's happening in parliament. And then to look just really briefly at some of the actions that people are taking now that I think have been really instrumental in what we, in the legislation that we saw past a couple of weeks ago. So from my own perspective, I'm, you know, I was been an ally of Palestinian solidarity. And when I first began actively working with Palestinians in Ottawa in the mid 90s with an organization called C-PAL, which was a Canadian Palestinian educational exchange with a Palestinian led organization that worked with refugees in those days. And we also had a, we had a co-organization called the Middle East discussion group. And quite incredibly in those days of federal government that there was a liberal government at the time would invite us to come in to talk to their committees. Canada was at that time, the chair of what was called the refugee working group on Palestine. And they were, so to get a picture of the level of openness at that time. You know, they were inviting activists to come in and talk to policy makers. And so as Libby said, you know, that tide really changed. And in the 2000s with the, you know, with the Harper government and the really powerful role of the Zionist lobby on parliament. And I think this is where, you know, as activists we were a bit further behind on really lobbying our parliamentarians. Look, we were, that we were invited to speak. We didn't feel we needed to lobby. I think it was those early days, the early 2000s where the Zionist movement really grew very strong. And we saw that tide that Libby discussed where, you know, suddenly to, I know you all know, right? To talk about basic human rights for Palestinians was to be labeled anti-Semitic, you know? And that really shut, as you all know, I'm sure too it just has really shut down a lot of criticism and shut down a lot of voices and it scared a lot of people from speaking out. And I think what's been incredible recently is that, you know, over the last decade we've seen people speaking out against getting past that stigma and fighting back. And I did go to just to touch on what Medea said. I went actually went to Gaza first in 2009 with Code Pink. And then I came back and worked with Libby and we organized a parliamentary delegation to Gaza. And it was, I think the still the last parliamentary delegation to have gone to Gaza in 2009. You know, and again, just to give you guys a sense of what Canada's role was, you know, when actually just shortly before we were there in 2009 that the airport in Gaza was bombed and that airport was called that it was named after Jean Chrétien, who was one of our prime ministers. We'd funded that airport. So just to give a sense, you know, like Canada was very involved and then it completely withdrew into the other side. And it's been really following the lead of America and of, you know, of Israel's leadership. So this was a huge move what we saw happen two weeks ago. And I think it came from a number of things. One is, you know, what we've seen on the ground. One is the role of like these weekly demos since October, you know, it's people have been relentless every weekend. They are out on Parliament Hill and the numbers have been growing and growing. So sometimes, you know, you all know what it's like being out there. Sometimes it's small, but it's been incredible to see how it has been, it has continued week after week. And I think that's had a big effect on both the population of Ottawa who are largely public servants, a bit like Washington. You know, they, they see it. And they're going into work every day. We've seen the lobbying of MPs has been extremely important and like active organized lobbying. And we'll probably talk about this a little bit more, but she was part of, she's part of a, an organization called TJPME. So Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. And they've been doing two really interesting things that weren't done in the past. And that's actively lobbying politicians. And they've been doing an incredible media watch campaign and getting a lot of public support around that. So, you know, when, when our national media, you know, like report lopsided ways on or just repeat press releases from, you know, from Israel or from a government agency, they will organize writing campaigns that have been very effective in getting that more balanced coverage. And the other thing that I think has been really, well, I'll just, the two other things were the, you know, I come from independent media. I was a publisher of an organization called rabble.ca for almost 20 years. And the role of independent media and amplifying the voices of Palestinians and Gaza and of the solidarity movements is incredibly important. And the final thing that I think that has been really critical has been the support of allies in the house. And I think that's something you guys, has been a challenge in this, you know, it's challenged when your allies in the house are not always going as far as you'd like to see them go. You know, I know that's been an issue here in the States with some of the allies, but to be able to work behind the scenes with them and support them with the incredible, you know, against the incredible pushback that they receive has been very important. So anyways, those are some of my thoughts on it. And I'll pass it back over to Medea. And I know you've got Rachel Small on the call as well, who I think will have a lot of amazing in-depth detail to go into. Well, thank you so much, Kim Elliott. I'm Marcy Wynne, coordinator of CodePink Congress, Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CodePink is co-hosting with me tonight. And we're talking about Canada's amazing, the activism in Canada that propelled the parliament to pass a resolution banning weapons to Israel and for the foreign ministers to say, we're going to make this real, that's fantastic. So appreciate Kim, your commitment, your longstanding commitment to activism and to sharing with us some interesting things that I had no idea about that airport in Gaza. Okay, so our next speaker I'm very honored to present is Rachel Small. She is Canada's organizer for World Beyond War. She's based in Toronto on dish with one spoon and treaty 13 indigenous territory. Rachel has organized with local and international social and environmental justice movements for over a decade with a focus on working in solidarity with communities harmed by Canadian extractive industry projects in Latin America. Rachel Small is a longtime member of the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and has a master's in environmental studies from York University. She has a background in art-based activism and has facilitated projects in community, mural making, independent publishing and media, spoken word, gorilla theater and communal cooking. Welcome Rachel to CodePink Congress. Thank you so much. And thank you for what you shared Kim and Libby. I won't go into extensive detail, but I'll just add in some other chunks. I love that we're three different folks here in Canada who have been working sort of in different areas of this shared struggle. So I'll try to not repeat what you've shared but just add some of the other aspects of how I think we got to this really exciting moment in Canadian organizing. I mean, exciting amongst amidst a moment of obviously just complete heartbreak and devastation and just, yeah, like seeing the worst of humanity. I guess I wanna specifically shout out the leadership of Palestinians across so-called Canada and specifically I wanna say of the Palestinian youth movement who really since day one have been emphasizing that we really need to deep dive into what Canadian complicity looks like in what's going on here, to not just be looking to our neighbors to the south, to not just be looking at Mercedes but really be looking at what is going on here in Canada. And I also wanna shout out to the Palestinian trade unions who again, from day one have really had one ask since October and that's to stop arming Israel. So I think many of us have been taking direction from them. And I mean, where ICS getting to this moment is really just witnessing, I think at this point hundreds, at least a hundred thousand people across Canada who have really been feeling that we just cannot in good conscience stand by as witnessing the horrors that are happening but also knowing and increasingly understanding that weapons companies in our own neighborhoods and across the country are arming and making a fortune off of the carnage in Gaza, the in Gaza and the massacre of thousands of Palestinians. And what I have just seen over the past few months is just this increasing commitment that's just been very clear that until the Canadian government stops the flow of weapons to and from Israel then people across the country of conscience are forced to take whatever actions we can to stop a genocide. So that's included some of what Libby and Kim has shared. Maybe I'll just really briefly share our own website mostly just to highlight that there's been incredible research happening behind the scenes, grassroots researchers who've been spending countless, thankless hours in spreadsheets to be able to map out hundreds of companies across the country that are involved in the Canada Israel arms trade. It looks like not hundreds, but if you zoom in in any city you'll see that there's more and more and more. And what this type of research has done is helped people, first of all, understand this is not something happening over there. This is something happening with workers, with transport companies in my own community. And also, I'm gonna, sorry, scroll down a bit here. There's a lot of information, but I wanna sort of show what this has looked like, which is incredible direct actions. This is a bit of a toolkit, but this you could probably scroll through for 20 minutes, which I won't do, but every single day, almost and certainly every week there have been direct actions where people have been blocking the flow of weapons themselves saying until the Canadian government does it, we're not gonna let their business as usual continue. So this one was just this morning where a group of several dozen activists in Quebec blocked all entrances to Herudevchak, a Canadian weapons company that is part of the supply chain for Lockheed Martin's F-35s, folks in Newfoundland and the far, far East coast of the country did this last week. This was on the CN tower. I won't show this for too long, but just to say that direct actions, I think have been a really big part of this overall picture as well. And people really showing that they're gonna put their bodies on the line. They're going to not just wait for politicians to do the right thing, but force the conversation. And that's also looked like sit-ins at politicians' offices. As was mentioned earlier, that's looked like people and I've been seeing the same tactics in the States, not letting their members of parliament go out to dinner without being forced to confront their role in the genocide that's happening. I'll stop scrolling here because I think you get the gist, but whether it's been sort of rail blockades or members of parliament's offices or weapons companies themselves, it's been incredibly powerful. And I wanna say that this has been a really important moment in movement building because at the same time as there's been these direct actions, the advocacy efforts that Libby and Kim mentioned, the record-breaking petitions, the bird-docking, we've also been working as movements across the country alongside legal teams who are pursuing the Canadian government in federal court for not following their own laws about weapons exports. So it's been a really powerful moment of everyone really working in concert on this. One thing I do wanna share, and this I think is especially important for other folks in Canada in the audience, is where we're at in terms of an arms embargo. So Melanie Jolie, after the motion was voted on, did follow up by saying, okay, we're really not gonna authorize any more permits for Canada. So that's step one here that we've checked off. However, what she did not say is that they had just approved a record-breaking number of permits to Israel. And those of course had not yet shipped out. So we're demanding, well, I've skipped ahead here, we're demanding first of all, step two, okay, if this is the new policy of Canada, you need to actually reflect that on the Global Affairs Canada website. We can't just take it at your word because you told the media this, we wanna see this reflected in government policy. And then we want you to not ship the weapons that you had already authorized permits for. If it's no longer acceptable for Canada to approve weapons permits for Israel, it's also no longer acceptable for them to ship them, and then we have to work on closing the loophole that right now has Canada, not even tracking the weaponry that's going through the US on the way to Israel. So that's everything that's going into the F-35 systems or the warships or the various systems that are assembled at the huge, for example, Lockheed or Boeing plants in the US, Canada's not even tracking those exports. They're only tracking the ones that go straight from Canada to Israel. So that's the next step. And then finally, what we're demanding is a real arms embargo, which as defined by the Canadian government means that you don't let military goods in or out of the country. So that also means Canada no longer buying weapons from Israel because that's directly funding Israel's war effort and their military industrial complex. So I say this not in discouragement, we have won a huge first step and one that Canada was loath to take and never would have taken without the enormous pressure by movements, by lawyers, by lobbyists, by activists all across the country, but we're not gonna let it take the wind out of our sails. We need to win a real arms embargo. And that means not doing what I think the government is counting on us to do, which is to say, great, you did it, thanks, but instead to ramp up the effort. So I'll stop there and thanks so much for putting this event together. Thank you, Rachel, for taking us into the weeds to really look at what was passed and what more can be done to strengthen that resolution. So at this point, we're gonna have a Q and A and then after that we'll have our Capitol calling party, tweeting party, whatever you wanna do to send a message to Congress, no more weapons to Israel. That's the topic here. Canada passed, quote, a non-binding resolution but does have a lot of power in and of itself. And I just was reading today that the Israeli press was very nervous about this resolution. They don't want this out there. We already see that there are efforts to stop weapons, successful efforts to block or ban weapons in Italy, the Netherlands, the court Netherlands said, no, no, Japan, Spain, Belgium, we need to get the US on board, obviously, and all the pressure we can bring to bear on Biden at this point, I think is really warranted. So with that, let's have our Q and A if we can bring up our three guests. And Medea, would you like to ask the first question? Well, I would because I'm just astounded by this whole thing. I mean, if it was announced on April 1st, I would say it was an April Fool's Day joke that Canada passed this, because it's so far from what we could ever get here. And is it really because here we have so much money in our politics and such a strong pro-Israel lobby group and you don't have that same kind of huge influx of money into politics? And Libby, I'll direct that at you. Well, I'll try and keep it short because I know there's probably a ton of questions and Kim and Rachel will want to jump in as well. I mean, the political scene in Canada, the rules are different. We do have much more of a structured system in terms of lobbyists and how much money can flow in. But nevertheless, you know, there are lobbyists, they're registered and they do create pressure and they do influence the political agenda. But I think as Rachel spoke here, and I think all three of us, like this was really a grassroots across the country rising up of voices from the Palestinian community, the Canadian Muslim community in Canada. You know, like for example, there were organizations that were threatening not to allow any government minister to a Muslim community event in a mosque. They were threatening to cut off any donations to the Liberal Party, which they rely on these donations to win elections. So the levels, I think what's really important, dear is the levels of work. It can never be, you know this, it can never be one thing. It's the demonstrating in the street. It's the research like Rachel's been doing on the arms trade. It's the lobbying, it's the advocacy, it's all of those, it's the petitions, it's all of those things together. And so although I think the rules in Canada might make it somewhat easier because it's just not as, there's just not so much power that is influencing nevertheless, those influences are there. Like groups like CEDA, the Canadian Israeli Jewish Affairs is a very powerful lobby in Ottawa. They're very powerful in the media. They attack people who dare to speak out, who are elected and just brand them anti-Semitic. So as Kim was saying, you know, that shuts a lot of people down. It's beginning to change. So those pressures are there, but I think the lesson for me is that the sense of solidarity, the sense of people working together at different levels is overcoming this, right? And it's been, and I keep coming back to this wonderful guy who was on this call last week that I was on where he said we're winning the narrative. And I thought, wow, he is so right. We're beginning to win the narrative. And that's what I think is keeping people going. Did anyone else wanna respond to that? Thank you, Libby. I'll maybe quickly say, yeah, I think we made the political cost to them of not doing this higher than I'm doing this. Like they are facing a very big backlash for doing this, but it was less pressure than they had currently been feeling. And frankly, I don't think we should underestimate the fact that not a single liberal member of parliament has been able to go out to dinner in peace in months. Like I think every little bit helps. Absolutely, yes. So here's a question. How extensively and fairly was this motion covered in Canadian mainstream media or corporate media? Any polls gauging Canadians' reactions to the motion? I don't know of any polls. I don't know if you do, Rachel or Kim, but there was actually a fairly decent amount of coverage of the motion because there was a lot of speculation about what the government was gonna do with this resolution, whether they were gonna vote for it or not because one could see that they were trying to stop their members from supporting it, but then they realized, oh my God, this is gonna go sideways and we're gonna lose control. So they started sort of plan B, I guess, but there was a fair amount of media off to us as well. There was one story that I saw in the Globe and Mail that sort of did a bit of a breakdown of what happened with the motion and all the sort of the behind the scenes maneuvering that went on between the two political parties. That is the NDP and the Liberal Party. So it got some coverage, but again, I think none of us are satisfied with that because the coverage overall in the corporate media has been very, very pro-Israel Israeli. And as Kim pointed out, the media monitoring from CJPME has been really, really important to try and unpack the lies and the propaganda and the rhetoric. And so people have paid a lot of attention to that. And there have been quite a few big wins on that front where major media outlets like the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Global News have had to, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC, which is our public broadcaster, have had to rewrite stories or apologize or put forward the proper facts. So those have been major accomplishments as well doing that. Thank you, Libby. Medea? Yeah, we have some questions about how strong is the weapons lobby in Canada and how big has the weapons trade with Israel been? And maybe Rachel, we could start with you there. So the weapons lobby is very powerful actually in Canada. And if you look at sort of where the offices are of, I mean, this is similar to Washington in some ways, like where the offices are of all these companies, like they're all right near Harlem and Hill, you could look up the lobby record. And I mean, and in similar to US, like we know that they are not simply hawking their weapons to meet the foreign policy goals of the government. They're shaping the foreign policy of the government. However, it is not on the same scale as the US and it is not as central and key in industry in Canada as it is in the US, but still it's a powerful lobby. In terms of the actual size of weapons exports from Canada to Israel, it's not huge, especially the direct export of weapons directly from Canada to Israel, it's not a huge amount. So what is far larger is the Canadian production of components that get built into US weapon systems that are destined to Israel. That's a much bigger part of it. And frankly, the military goods that Canada buys from Israel actually surpasses the amount that we export to Israel. So Canada just signed a big deal to purchase a whole bunch of spike missiles from Israel. That's larger than the majority of what Canada actually exports to Israel. However, the victory of Canada, one of Israel's staunchest allies in the world saying we're gonna pause approving any more weapon sales to you is huge and frankly is larger than the physical impact of those weapons. And I mean, I think all of us on this call know that it would be literally impossible for Israel to be doing what it's doing without the flow of weapons, especially from the US, but also from Canada, also from Europe. So anything that staunches that flow is huge. But yeah, Canada on the global scale is not providing a majority of weapons to Israel. Thank you so much. And before we close out the Q and A, if you wanna give us any advice or suggestions before we move on to our capital calling party, now is the time. Any thoughts on building our strengths? When I started with him as a grassroots activist, what would you suggest to us? Well, I mean, God, I think what you've been doing, like what you're doing tonight is fantastic. I don't know if you have been, I think what Rachel commented about direct actions, like following some of your members around. I know there's been some actions around following some progressive members around, but actually showing up at those places where some of the Democratic members are dining and making sure that they're uncomfortable and are always aware that their voters are, people who vote for them are paying attention to this matter and want them to just stand up and speak out. I would just add that to your list of things that you're doing. If I could just add one quick comment, Medea. I mean, one thing that I would like us to do more of in Canada, maybe there's some conversation going on, is of course, Canada's role at the UN is also very critical. Canada is a middle power. We used to be very independent in our foreign policy, but we're not now. We basically follow the US on most questions. So having a much stronger presence at the UN for Canada, we have a very disastrous UN ambassador from Canada, who's very much a pro-Israel supporter, Bob Ray. And so trying to change that narrative at the UN for Canada, I think would have a huge impact globally. And so that's one thing I'd like to see happen is sort of changing our international presence and being a voice for peace and justice and recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN and for Canada and other countries to be supporting that consistently. Thank you. Any last thoughts? I mean, this is maybe less specific, but I mean, things always seem very obvious in retrospect, but the idea that Canada would have done this a few months ago was completely unthinkable. It's completely not fitting with Canadian policy over, I don't know, five decades at least, four decades at least. So I think, and especially for those, I mean, I'm so incredibly privileged to get to work as an anti-war organizer as my day job with World Beyond War and it's a huge privilege. But it also means every day, this log of doing this work over many years, like sometimes we limit ourselves, I think, in what we think is possible. And it's honestly been speaking and spending so much time with people who are new to this moment, this movement and hearing their just complete outrage at the shock of discovering the way that Canada is sending these weapons because they had never known it before. Seeing them burst into tears of frustration reminds me like how appalling this truly is and like to not sort of concede any ground. I may think like, oh, it's so terrible that Canada does this and like, we've got to keep trying, but we're never going to win. But to have that, I guess to take direction and energy from the people who are new to this movement and who are just not willing to concede an inch because their eyes have been kind of newly opened to the horrors. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate your insight. I have one thing. Yeah. Sorry, I just want to add something because we have among the three of you, the inside-outside strategy that when Libby was in parliament and you've got fans on this call who want you to run again, Libby, and say thank you, work for you from day one. But what we really need as well as learning from you grassroots, the activism, is to have some of the NDP or progressive people in parliament be more involved in pressuring our Congress. I wonder if we could follow up with you, Libby, on figuring out how to do that. We've had some progressive members from European parliament come to the US, and it's been very helpful. But if we could get some of those Canadians, that would be great. Absolutely, we can help follow up with that, yeah. Terrific, thank you. Okay, thank you, everybody. Was it a pleasure to meet you? Thank you so much. Thank our guests. What's on you? Thank you all. Thank you.