Trudeau government advised it would be expected to carry out ICC arrest warrants, including for Netanyahu
An internal memo told Justin Trudeau's government that it was expected to pursue the arrests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his then defence minister and Hamas leaders if the International Criminal Court were to issue the warrants being prepared by one of its prosecutors.
Adviser wrote in June 2024 that Canada has international obligations to ICC
Raffy Boudjikanian · CBC News
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An internal memo told Justin Trudeau's government that it was expected to pursue the arrests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his then defence minister and Hamas leaders if the International Criminal Court were to issue the warrants being prepared by one of its prosecutors.
Trudeau and his successor Mark Carney both later said they would act on the warrants. But the document — dated months before the warrants were ultimately issued — offers a rare glimpse at internal advice the government received from a non-partisan source.
"The International Criminal Court is a designated extradition partner under Canada's Extradition Act," Trudeau's national security adviser at the time, Nathalie Drouin, wrote in a memo dated June 10, 2024.
"Upon a request to co-operate, should one ever be received, Canada would be expected to seek an arrest warrant in a Canadian court," wrote Drouin, who is now Canada's ambassador to France.
CBC News asked the ICC and the federal government if Canada had received a request to co-operate related these warrants, but did not get an answer by deadline.
A protester holds a placard depicting an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin on Oct. 10, 2026. (Christian Mang/Reuters)
The heavily redacted document, obtained by CBC News through an access to information request, is dated less than a month after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan sought applications for the arrests of Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, along with senior Hamas figures Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri.
Israel rejects the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant. The three Hamas leaders have all since been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces.
Immediately after the issuance of Khan's applications, Trudeau publicly said he was troubled by false equivalencies being drawn between Israel's democratically elected government and Hamas, which Canada lists as a terrorist organization.
Similarly, Trudeau's foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, declined to answer journalists' questions about what the Canadian government would do if Netanyahu or Gallant ever came to Canada, calling such a scenario "hypothetical" as no warrants had yet been issued.
"The ICC may request that Canada, as a state party to the Rome Statute, co-operate in the provisional arrest or (if the subject is on the way or in Canada) in the arrest and surrender of that person," Drouin wrote.
Canada's Ambassador to France Nathalie Drouin speaks to reporters during the G7 summit in June. In her previous role, Drouin wrote a memo stating Canada has obligations to the International Criminal Court to enforce arrest warrants. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press)
"For example, Canada has received a request for provisional arrest following the issuance of a warrant against [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin."
While the ICC issued its arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023, over a year after Canada prohibited Russian planes from entering its airspace, it is unclear in the memo when that provisional arrest request was received by Canada. CBC News requested more details from Global Affairs Canada but did not receive them by deadline.
The unredacted portions of the memo do not make clear whether Drouin's advice also applied to Canadian airspace.
Once the ICC warrants related to the war in Gaza were issued in November 2024, Trudeau said Canada would "abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts, this is just who we are as Canadians."
Joly reiterated Trudeau's stance, though neither explicitly used the word arrest nor named any individuals in their answers.
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Carney has been slightly more explicit, saying "yes" in an interview with Bloomberg in October 2025, when he was asked about whether he would arrest Netanyahu should the latter enter Canada.
Netanyahu's government airplane, the Wing of Zion, has flown over Canadian airspace a number of times since the warrants were issued, with the federal government declining to turn the flights away.
On the latest occasion, during the Israeli prime minister's visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said "authorization to pass through Canadian airspace should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the policies or actions of any particular government," adding that overflight request was related "to the United Nations General Assembly, a critical forum for diplomatic engagement."
Whether or not flying over sovereign airspace would require state parties to the Rome Statute to enforce ICC arrest warrants is a matter of debate. France has said its ICC treaty obligations do not extend to its airspace, while some international law experts argue that Canada and others failing to do so weakens the court.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raffy Boudjikanian is a senior reporter with the CBC's Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa. He has also worked in Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal for the public broadcaster.
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