New federal legislation due to go into effect in the fall will allow the Canadian government to determine the magnitude and impact of the Arab boycott on the nation’s businesses, it was announced Monday at a press conference in Toronto by Defense Minister Barnett Dawson and Secretary of State John Roberts. Firms will be required to report to the government any requests for information which appear to be linked with the Arab boycott of Israel.
Roberts told the press conference, “We feel business will welcome this legislation…because they can say to the customer: ‘Look, we can’t do it because the government does not allow it.'” Under the new legislation, he noted, businessmen will be given definite guidelines for dealing with other countries.
However, Dawson and Roberts said the legislation is still weaker than that adopted by the United States. They said fines will not be imposed on companies failing to file reports but hoped that public disclosure of the firms’ names failing to report would act as a sufficient deterrent against complying with Arab boycott requests. “If we were to find in the future that disclosure is not as effective as we believe it is, then we would have to reassess it,” Roberts said. The move by the government comes three months after the Jewish community launched a major campaign urging a tougher stand against the Arab boycott of Israel.
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.
