Herb Gray. MP for Windsor, Ont. and a former Minister of Consumer Affairs, criticized the Canadian government for taking no action on the Arab boycott of Israel and its implications for Canadians. Gray, addressing the opening session of the two-day annual policy conference of the Canada-Israel Committee which ended today, recalled that Prime Minister Pierre Elliott-Trudeau said in the House of Commons last year that “I think this type of practice (boycott) is alien to everything the government stands for.”
Gray cited an agreement signed by Minister for External Affairs Allan McEachen with Saudi Arabia on his recent Middle East tour which is based on the principle “each according to its laws and regulations.” Gray asked, “Is that a tacit recognition of Saudi Arabia’s boycott?” The former Cabinet member said he wanted the Canadian government to publicly confirm that any takeover of Canadian properties application, particularly one financed by petrodollars, should be checked for any discriminatory intention on the part of foreign investors.
He called on Trudeau to reaffirm that “Arab funds or any foreign funds are not welcome here if they are to be used in any way that is discriminatory against the people of Canada.” That was part of Trudeau’s statement to the House of Commons last year.
A document released by the Canada-Israel Committee stated that 140 Canadian companies are on the Arab League boycott list. Gray said that the Export Development Corp., a Canadian government agency, has been giving export insurance, financing certain transactions by Canadian firms with Arab countries, though it know information that some of those transactions included compliance with the Arab boycott.
WARNING ON THE HABITAT CONFERENCE
Joe Clarke, leader of the opposition and president of the Progressive-Conservative Party, declared at another session of the conference that the friends of Israel in Canada are entitled to expect more support from the non-Jewish community against the Arab boycott.
Clarke referred to the Habitat Conference to be held in Vancouver. B.C. in June, to which the Palestine Liberation Organization has been invited. He said. “We are confronted with a Moslem-Communist bloc in the Middle East trying to frustrate efforts for peace” and “should the Vancouver Habitat Conference be turned into an anti-Israel attack by the Communist bloc and the Arabs, we shall make the government respond to such an attack. Should the anti-Israel bloc use the platform in denying Israel’s existence, our welcome will be worn out and the majority of Canadians share this view with us.”
The Habitat agenda includes better housing, dispersal of huge urban agglomerations and improvement of housing conditions for low income people. Barney Danson, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, who is in charge of the conference to which Canada is serving as host, told the conference that “the Canadian government wants the conference to deal exclusively with the issues that are on the agenda because any politicizing of this conference will oblige the Canadian government to take steps.”
Danson expressed hope “that the PLO representatives will contribute to the progress of the Habitat Conference and not disturb its work.” But he noted that Canadian Jews are legitimately concerned about the PLO’s presence. “We are going to fight influences which are wrong,” he pledged.
UN IS THE CENTER OF WORLD ANTI-SEMITISM
Chaim Herzog, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, said here last night at the fifth annual parliamentary dinner of the Canada-Israel Committee that the UN General Assembly has been converted “into the center of world anti-Semitism and the manner in which the UN dealt with the Middle East is a tragedy of major proportions.” He stated that 30 percent of the time of the last Assembly session was devoted to attacking Israel. He noted that while the UN was engaged “in its paranoiac obsession with Israel” the world body failed to take up the defense of the Kurds in Iraq or the Black natives in the Sudan.
Aaron Pollack, president of the Canada-Israel Committee in introducing Herzog, said “Arab and Communist states, after failing to destroy Israel by war, are attempting to liquidate it by diplomatic means. The time has come for Canadians to take a stand against the UN onslaught against Israel. Canada has the power and the morality to help its friends, and Israel is our friend.”
CORRECTION
George W. Ball, former Undersecretary of State, was incorrectly identified in the Passover issue of the Bulletin as a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D.Wash.). The Senator’s office said today that Ball has not been and is not in any way officially or formally connected with Jackson either us a Senator or Presidential candidate.
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