Former diplomat sheds light on Canada’s approach to hostage negotiations

As families hold out hope for loved ones believed to be taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, a former Canadian diplomat with personal experience handling hostage negotiations spoke to CityNews about Canada’s role in the intense efforts to secure the safe return of civilians.

“When the lives of your own citizens are on the line, you’re going to negotiate,” said Gar Pardy, former Director-General of Consular Affairs.

The Israeli government estimates 135 hostages holding foreign passports, including from Canada, are currently being held in the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly confirms Canadians have been dispatched to support Israel’s chief negotiator. Pardy told CityNews he expects the “team of experts” Joly said has been sent to the region is also pushing Israel to delay a potential ground invasion.

“Certainly, the role that I played in a number of years that I was involved in these with any number of countries, is to talk to the country that is mainly involved, and this would be Israel,” he said, “specifically on the issues that are involved from the Canadian perspective.”

While Ottawa often publicly maintains it will not negotiate with kidnappers, Pardy said behind the scenes there are people doing exactly that. During his service with the Department of Foreign Affairs, he managed the release of 125 kidnapped Canadians in all parts of the world.

“We never lost one,” he added.

As bombs fall on Gaza, Canada has joined other western allies in saying it supports the idea of humanitarian pauses in the war. But Government House Leader Karina Gould didn’t specify on Wednesday what a pause might look like or if it’s conditional on hostages being released.

“I don’t think we need to make this one or the other,” when it comes to advocating for the release of hostages, said Gould. “But we also understand that we need to get humanitarian assistance to Gazans.”

Pardy told CityNews Canada uses intermediaries and a number of different mechanisms “to pay the price that has to be paid.”

“There’s always a ransom of some kind or another to be paid. And don’t think of ransoms only in monetary terms,” he said. “Think of ransoms in terms of political issues and that, probably more than anything else, is the central issue in the negotiations that are going on right now in regard to the hostages in Gaza.”