Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she has asked Oman for permission to access its airspace as other nations take steps to get their citizens out of the Middle East.
Anand's office said the federal government has no immediate plan to evacuate Canadians as the U.S. and Israel continue their assault on Iran.
"The situation is very volatile and very real, in terms of the potential for human life to be lost across the region, and that is our main concern, always," Anand told the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Tuesday.
"We would like to play a role in the cessation of hostilities and the diplomatic resolution to the future result between these countries. It is a role that we are seeking to continually play.”
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She was speaking as the U.S. State Department said it was preparing military and charter flights for Americans who want to leave the Middle East, as other nations have done for their own citizens.
Anand said she has been in touch with multiple foreign ministers from the Persian Gulf and broader Middle East to ensure "that there are possibilities for Canadians to have supports in those countries."
She noted that Oman still had "viable" airspace as of Tuesday morning and cited that country’s role in leading the negotiations that were underway when U.S. President Donald Trump decided to launch a strike on Iran over the weekend.
Israel is part of that military campaign and has also hit Lebanon. In reply, Iran has struck multiple countries in the region and staged a drone attack on the American embassy in Saudi Arabia.
While Ottawa insists Canadian troops in the region are safe, it refuses to say how many of them are there.
Anand's office said she is urging Canadians to leave the region by their own means. It said there is no current plan for Ottawa to co-ordinate evacuations, either by chartering commercial airlines or using military aircraft.
Anand said that in a Tuesday conversation with her Omani counterpart, she asked for Canadian access to that country's airspace in case an evacuation does take place.
Global Affairs Canada says more than 97,000 Canadians are registered in the Middle East.
They include a group of 16 Queen’s University students and one faculty member. The university says they're safe in Doha after trying to make a connecting flight in Qatar following a biology field course in Sri Lanka.
Earlier Tuesday, Defence Minister David McGuinty said Canadian military personnel in the Middle East were out of harm’s way. When he was asked how many Canadian military personnel are in the region, the minister said, "Some."
"They are all fine, out of harm's way and it's something that we're watching very carefully," McGuinty told reporters in Sydney, Australia, where he was on an official visit with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
His department would not get into more detail.
“Due to operational security imperatives, we will not provide a breakdown on the specific locations and number of Canadian Armed Forces personnel in the region at this time,” wrote department spokesman Kened Sadiku.
The Department of National Defence has previously listed the number of Canadian personnel stationed at an American airbase in Qatar and its soldiers have been posted recently to Kuwait and Bahrain.
Carney has endorsed the strikes on Iran, saying they seek "to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security." But he also has suggested Canada will not get involved in the strikes.
McGuinty said the Canadian Armed Forces weren’t involved in the preparation or execution of the attack and Canada was not given advance notice.
He said the government "decided from the beginning" it would support the attack but is also calling for a diplomatic end to the conflict.
Carney spoke Tuesday with Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, thanking him for protecting at least 24,500 Canadians in that country, which includes Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
McGuinty said the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a positive development.
"Ayatollah Khamenei has been for many, many decades a very, very powerful force for evil in Iran and in the region," he said.
Anand has previously said it would require "regime change" in Iran for Canada to re-establish the diplomatic relations that a previous government severed in 2012.
Meanwhile, Anand said Ottawa will never use its wealth in food products and commodities to pressure others — a comment that did not seem related to events in Iran nor to Carney’s visit to India.
"As a country, we will never weaponize food. We will not weaponize the food supply chain. We will not use food as a tool of aggression. That is not the Canadian way," she said. "We want to partner in a professional manner and trade in accordance with principles that the trading infrastructure of our world is built upon."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2026.
— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Sydney, Australia, as well as Maan Alhmidi and Rianna Lim in Toronto.
