SEIU Local 2's Executive Board has issued the following statement.
Just weeks after Prime Minister Mark Carney was lauded for his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he not only says he supports what is an illegal US-Israeli war against Iran, but now will not rule out Canadian military participation.
Canada should be a voice for de-escalation, diplomacy, and international law, not for normalizing unilateral strikes. Now more than ever we need to decouple our foreign policy from the United States and Israel.
War hurts working people, poor people, women, and children. One of the very first US-Israeli missile strikes destroyed an elementary school in southern Iran – according to some reports, deliberately. Over 165 schoolgirls and staff were killed. UNESCO condemned the attack as a “grave violation of humanitarian law.”
This illegal war, and the way it is being carried out, is certain to cause more havoc, destruction and instability throughout the world and especially the Middle East. Already a dozen countries have been dragged into the conflict.
Two things can be true at once: That people of Iran deserve freedom, and that a bombing campaign is very unlikely to provide it. Freedom can only come from the Iranian people, not from military intervention by outside powers.
The current attacks on Iran must stop before the entire region is plunged into further conflict, death, and destruction.
Our thoughts are with the people in Iran.
