Honourable senators, in 2017, the Trudeau government launched its feminist foreign policy, bragging that it would position Canada as a “. . . champion for gender equality . . . .”

It appears, however, that this policy and the claims about applying a feminist lens to our foreign policy is just for show. When it is time for real action and leadership, Canada is nowhere to be found.

I’m talking, colleagues, about the deafening silence in the face of mounting evidence of Hamas’ rape and horrific acts of sexual violence committed against innocent Jewish Israeli women on October 7, and the denial of these acts having even occurred.

Hamas was not shy about having committed these heinous crimes. They filmed and published videos, including one showing them with a young kidnapped Israeli woman with blood‑soaked pants as they paraded her through the streets of Gaza.

Hamas terrorists have also admitted to the atrocities in now‑public police interrogations. In other cases, eyewitnesses have bravely come forward about the horrors they saw. One woman spoke about seeing her friend gang-raped and having her breasts cut off. She went on to describe how some Hamas terrorists started playing with the discarded breast while others continued the gang rape until one of them shot the woman in the head while still in the act of raping her.

Israeli paramedics and first responders who first encountered the horrific scenes of bodies found strewn throughout Israeli border communities have shared their stories of witnessing young women — some even in their early teens — found without pants and with evidence of rape on their bodies.

Others describe women with broken pelvises, so violent was the sexual attack against them. But for some unknown reason, despite our feminist foreign policy, the minister responsible has yet to comment on these crimes.

Sadly, to my knowledge, as these details have emerged, none of our colleagues from the government or anyone in Parliament have called out Hamas for violating international law by using rape as a weapon of war and targeting innocent young women in this way.

What is worse is that we are seeing our elected officials at the provincial and municipal levels, as well as academics and even those responsible for university sexual assault centres, signing on to statements denying Hamas’ rape and sexual assault.

This denial is all too familiar for Jewish people.

So where are all of the voices who talk about standing up for women? Why has no one stood in this chamber? The silence by many parliamentarians and members of our government who claim to be defenders of women’s rights is an abdication of responsibility that allows Hamas to get away with their unspeakable crimes.

It also sends a message to the Jewish community here in Canada that their families abroad are not worthy of this feminist government’s concern.

Failing to issue strong statements of condemnation further allows for these stories of denial to permeate our streets and social media, resulting in Jewish women, young and old, feeling unsafe and unimportant.

Colleagues, we can and must all do better. Thank you.