Federal Trade Minister Jack Homer has told the House of Commons that the government will not yield to demands by Canadian Jewish organizations to adopt anti-boycott legislation because “it might jeopardize trade with Arab states.” The Canada-Israel Committee and other Jewish groups have been urging laws that would make it illegal for a Canadian company to comply with the Arab boycott of Israel.
Horner said that “The government has to tread the middle way. If we please the Canadian-Israel Committee then we harm our chance of doing trade with the Arab states,” he said. The Canada-Israel Committee charged in a communique released June 7 that Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was “not protecting the civil rights of all Canadians, permitting the infringement of Canadian sovereignty and permitting foreign governments to restrict Canadian trading opportunities.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.