Send Mounties to investigate Hamas rapes, Canadian women leaders urge

‘We’re not talking about hypotheticals here. We’re talking about crimes that have been committed for which there is evidence,’ said former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne

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Canada should immediately send RCMP officers to Israel to assist in investigating the sexual violence committed on Israeli women by Hamas terrorists in the Oct. 7 attacks, according to a cross-partisan group of senior Canadian women politicians.

The investigative assistance would mirror a similar Canadian program in Ukraine, and should be matched with $1-million to support survivors and witnesses, according to the group, which includes a former provincial premier and federal cabinet minister.

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“We are here to bear witness to the testimony of rape and sexual violence,” said former Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, alongside former senior minister and deputy Conservative Party leader Lisa Raitt, and Cheri DiNovo, a United Church minister and former NDP Member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario.

“We cannot deny it. We cannot stay silent in the face of sexual violence. To do so is an affront to all victims,” Wynne said.

Supporting a robust investigation and continuing support for survivors is easily done, Wynne said. “The government knows how to do this.”

Wynne thanked Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly and Canadian Ambassador to Israel Lisa Stadelbauer for publicly acknowledging the truth of these atrocities.

Joly in particular had faced weeks of opposition pressure to specifically and clearly condemn the sexual violence, and did so last week, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “Using sexual violence as a tactic of war is a crime… We believe Israeli women.”

“So we’re not talking about hypotheticals here. We’re talking about crimes that have been committed for which there is evidence,” said Wynne, gathered with the others and supporters in a downtown Toronto office.

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Former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne speaks at an event.
Former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne speaks about how Hamas terrorists used sexual violence towards women during their Oct. 7 attacks against Israeli, in Toronto Monday December 11, 2023. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

They were followed by Maureen Leshem, founder of the 482 Collective in Toronto, which supports women, children and gender-diverse people fleeing gender-based violence.

Her Israeli cousin, Romi Gonen, a young woman who attended the music festival raided by Hamas, was kidnapped and remains a hostage in Gaza, with reports from released hostages that she is alive after 65 days of captivity, suffering from a gunshot wound and in need of urgent care.

Leshem’s distress at the world’s silence on these atrocities was forceful and spurred tears in some people watching.

This charge of public hypocrisy, of being dismissive of sexual violence against Israeli women in the face of credible evidence, was a major part of the politicians’ message, more even than request for money and investigative support, which Wynne had communicated in advance to contacts in the federal government. A formal request letter is to go out Tuesday.

Raitt objected to “process questions” about how the support proposal might work, suggesting they were beside the point. Instead she focused on the message that victims of sexual atrocities must be believed, and their suffering not equivocated away, or frivolously doubted, or falsely denied. She noted that the sexual violence of Oct. 7 was a planned part of the attack, a weapon in its own right.

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“The one thing we should stand firm on is that rape is not a weapon of war,” Raitt said.

“Silence is violence,” said DiNovo. “We’re talking about horrendous acts perpetrated on innocent women… The details are too horrible to recount.”

Wynne, in answering a question about the political and public traction this proposal might get, said Canadian people and politicians alike “are perfectly capable of holding more than one thing to be true at once and to take action on other fronts.”

“The fact of war should not protect perpetrators,” Wynne said, even though it frequently has in other conflicts.

One risk of inaction is complacency, the politicians all said.

“The next time a prominent man is accused, and you say “believe all women” or “me too,” you will not be believed, and future victims of sexual assault will be re-traumatized,” Wynne said. “It is incumbent on all of us to shine a light on these crimes against humanity, so that they never again happen to anyone.”

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Former Conservative MP Lisa Raitt speaks at an event.
Former Conservative MP Lisa Raitt speaks about how Hamas terrorists used sexual violence towards women during their Oct. 7 attacks against Israeli, in Toronto Monday December 11, 2023. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

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