CJPME: Meet Your MP about Gaza during Parliament’s Summer Recess

For almost 9 months, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) has pressured our elected officials in Ottawa. CJPME staff have met with Ministers, key bureaucrats, and opposition parties. In parallel, many of you have emailed, phone-called, and taken to the streets in solidarity every single week.

Now is a great time to shift our game to the local ridings. With our work these past few months, we can claim some collective victories, as we have forced Canada to take several measures in support of Palestinian rights. While our victories (changing Canada's position on ceasefires, arms embargoes, aid to UNRWA, etc.) are partial, incomplete, and deeply inadequate to address the ongoing genocide, we owe it to the Palestinians to persevere.

Can you schedule an appointment to meet with yours?

Below, we provide you with all the position papers, factsheets, info and other support you might need:

CJPME can provide you with everything – backgrounders, factsheets, position papers – that you need for a successful meeting with your MP. If you need coaching, we’re ready to help: Alex, our Senior Director of Parliamentary Affairs, and other CJPME staff and specialists are available to hold your hand through the process.

Familiarize yourself with the core issues

CJPME’s lobbying and advocacy have focused on two major policy areas in recent months: ending the arms trade with Israel and fighting anti-Palestinian racism. Check out our resources on these topics, and walk your MP through those recommendations:

Ending Canada’s arms trade with Israel

Canada’s pause on military exports to Israel is an important victory which we couldn’t have imagined a year ago. Nonetheless, it only addresses a small part of the problem, and MPs shouldn’t think that Canada’s actions to date are sufficient. We must get our MPs to call for an end to all military trade with Israel, period.

For background info, see our report from 2022, “Arming Apartheid,” and our statement on the latest figures showing that Canada’s exports to Israel were at an all-time high in 2023.

Our updated position paper on ending Canada’s arms trade has dozens of recommendations with supporting arguments. Walk your MP through these recommendations that provide not only Canada’s policy options but also Canada’s legal obligations to end the arms trade with Israel.

CJPME and allies have launched a campaign calling for a comprehensive, two-way arms embargo on Israel, which has been endorsed by 44 MPs from 3 political parties. If your MP hasn’t signed this pledge for a two-way arms embargo, it’s a great ask to make!

Fighting Anti-Palestinian racism

Despite the shocking rise in hateful and violent attacks on Palestinians and their supporters, our government is not taking the problem seriously. When Canada released its renewed Anti-Racism Strategy in June, it excluded mention of anti-Palestinian racism or any tools for addressing it, despite identifying Palestinians as a group facing unprecedented hate. Join us in urging this government to finally tackle all forms of APR as a distinct form of discrimination.

We have a basic one-page factsheet on anti-Palestinian racism in general provides an introduction to the concept, while a new in-depth CJPME Factsheet on APR highlights how Canadian institutions perpetuate systems of racism against Palestinians.

Our joint report with Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA), and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council (CMPAC), provided recommendations for how the government can address antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism together hand-in-hand using an intersectional framework.

Our webinar with IJV and the ACLA called “How Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy erases Palestinian voices and Supports Israel,” discusses these issues in depth and can be watched on YouTube.

Our recommendations to MP Matthew Green’s Nakba Bill Initiative for how the Canadian government can acknowledge the historical injustice of the Nakba and combat Canadian complicity in ongoing Israeli policies of erasure, displacement and dispossession.

Find your MP

If you don’t know who your MP is, you can find them here.

Procure and prepare for your appointment

If you are feeling a bit nervous or wondering how to start, we have a guide for managing your meeting and another with dos and don’ts for meeting with an MP.  After reading the guides, if you would like to talk it through, get in touch with This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your questions; and we’ll give you a helping hand.

Earlier this year we presented a Webinar to help anyone interested in meeting their MP about Canada’s arms trade with Israel, and you can still watch the video on YouTube.

After you meet with your MP, please fill out our “Meeting Report” form so CJPME staff are aware of the outcomes of your conversation.