Hello Prime Minister Carney
Volume 40 Issue 7, 8, & 9 | Posted: October 22, 2025
We are a small group of Catholic elders. We meet regularly to share our lives and to explore our faith and ordinary realities. Confronting all of us is the reality of genocide in Gaza by the very extreme government of Israel. As our Canadian Jewish friends in Ind ependent Jewish Voices cry out: “Genocide is not a Jewish value!” and “Genocide is not self defence!” – especially slow death by starvation.
We write, first of all, to urge you to name the horrific violence in Gaza for what it is: genocide – never acceptable. This genocide demands that we all set aside our comfortable positions and individual national country interests to protect those vulnerable to genocide. We must act prophetically.
Secondly, we urge you to lead Canadians in an honest, thorough and transparent two-way arms embargo to stop the flow of arms to Israel. We look to you as our Prime Minister to voice the horror of all Canadians to this evil.
Thirdly, we support your two nations policy. As Pope Francis wrote earlier this year to the Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera”, ‘… war only devastates communities and the environment, without offering solutions to conflicts….’ The region of Israel and Palestine can only find peace if the two nations lay down their arms and seek solutions to their differences.
Finally, Canada made an original mistake by demanding that the Indigenous Peoples of our land should govern themselves as we wish them to. Canada should not demand that Palestinians accept our vision of how they should govern themselves..
Many rich blessings in your demanding work as Prime Minister of Canada.
Len Desroches, Toronto;
Richard Renshaw, Welland, ON;
Hugh Williams, Debec, NB;
Walter Hughes, Ottawa;
Christine Jamieson, Montreal,
Jim Morin, Talca, Peru; and
Patrick Jamieson, Victoria.
(see “Weaving a Narrative of Hope for a Broken World” in the Features tab)