Carney says Ottawa’s position supporting U.S., Israeli strikes on Iran was taken ‘with regret’
Open this photo in gallery:
Prime Minister Mark Carney who was in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday says it falls on the U.S. and Israel to justify their pre-emptive strikes against Iran under international law.Hollie Adams/Reuters
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he backed U.S. and Israeli air strikes on Iran “with regret” because, although he considers Tehran the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East, the military attacks are a failure of the rules-based order and appear to be a violation of international law.
Mr. Carney’s first comments since he issued a statement of support for the strikes Saturday amount to an effort to distance himself from the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. He spoke to media in Sydney on Wednesday during a visit to Australia.
“We do, however, take this position with regret, because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order,” Mr. Carney said.
The attacks have caused, in the Prime Minister’s words, “a rapidly spreading conflict and growing threats to civilian life” in the region as Iran has retaliated by hitting back at Israel and nearby countries with U.S. military bases.
Carney says he supported Washington’s strikes on Iran ‘with regret’ over the continued decline of the rules-based international order.
The Canadian Press
Mr. Carney said the pre-emptive attacks on Iran “prima facie, appear to be inconsistent with international law” and are more evidence of how the global system of treaties, laws and forms is dysfunctional. Mr. Carney has ruled out Canada’s involvement in the conflict.
He said it’s up to the United States and Israel to justify their pre-emptive strikes under international law and for legal experts to determine whether these actions meet the test. “That formal judgment is for others to make,” he said.
Iran’s former leader was ‘force for evil,’ Defence Minister says, as he defends Ottawa’s backing of air strikes
The current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order, he continued, adding that Canada was not consulted on the attacks by the United States or Israel. The comments carried echoes of his January speech to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where he said the rules-based international order was over and the most powerful pursue their interests.
“Despite decades of UN Security Council resolutions, the tireless work of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the succession of sanctions and diplomatic frameworks, Iran’s nuclear threat remains, and now the United States and Israel have acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting allies, including Canada,” he said.
Open this photo in gallery:
A plume of smoke rises after an airstrike on Tehran on Tuesday.ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images
But even as Mr. Carney sought to put distance between himself and the air strikes, he emphasized the threat he believed Iran poses to the world.
“I would take up all the remaining time in this press conference − times 10 − if I went through the serial violations of international law by the Islamic Republic of Iran over decades,” the Prime Minister said.
“Let’s be real. This is a regime that is the biggest exporter of terror in the world, that has, for decades, terrorized the Middle East and murdered scores of Canadians, tens of thousands of its citizens, and repressed women in society,” he said. “It has sought persistently to obtain nuclear weapons.”
Opinion: Carney picks a realpolitik side on Iran war
Canada’s position on Iran has hardened over the past decade and a half. In 2012, former prime minister Stephen Harper cut off formal diplomatic ties with Tehran and shuttered Canada’s embassy there.
His successor, Justin Trudeau, never re-established official relations and became a vocal and persistent critic of Iran’s 2020 shooting down of a commercial plane filled with Canadian citizens and residents and its failure to account for its actions. In 2024, Canada designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist entity.
The Prime Minister said Canada’s backing of the strikes is not a “blank cheque” for the U.S. and Israel, saying they must take care to avoid hurting non-combatants.
“We remind all the belligerents of their responsibilities to protect civilians, to protect civilian infrastructure, and not target civilian infrastructure, and we call for de-escalation.”
Canada took a position backing the strikes because it believes Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, the Prime Minister said.
Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canadian military personnel in the Middle East are out of harm’s way.
The Canadian Press
Asked whether he considers the U.S. and Israeli air strikes a war of necessity or choice, Mr. Carney did not directly answer but said Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb would be a “massive threat.”
He said he doesn’t believe Iran when it denies seeking to build or acquire a nuclear bomb. “Nobody has a civil nuclear program that’s buried a mile beneath the desert,” the Prime Minister said.
Iran’s deceased leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the air strikes, was “a force for evil,” Defence Minister David McGuinty told reporters Tuesday in Sydney.
At the same time, Mr. McGuinty was careful to distance Canada from the military operations in the Middle East, saying Canada’s armed forces “were not involved in the preparation, nor the execution of that particular decision by the Israelis and the Americans to attack.”
Former Liberal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy has criticized Ottawa’s backing of the strikes, noting the attack on Iran was not authorized by the UN. He has contrasted Ottawa’s 2026 stand with how Canada in 2003 refused to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq because it was not authorized by a UN Security Council resolution.
Liberal MP Will Greaves has also spoken out against Canada’s backing of the strikes, saying, “Canada cannot endorse the unilateral and illegal use of military force, the killing of civilians, or the kidnap and assassination of foreign heads of government, while also insisting that our sovereignty, our rights and our independence must be respected.”
Asked about criticism of the Canadian government’s stand by Liberals, including Mr. Axworthy, Mr. McGuinty said the Liberal Party encompasses a broad range of views.
“The Liberal Party is a big tent. There’s room for all kinds of competing views,” he said. “I think it reflects Canadian society. That’s a good thing. We’re having dialogue, we’re having debate. It’s open, it’s transparent. We’ll find our way forward.”
