An NDP motion puts a big question to the test: Will Canada recognize Palestinian statehood?
An opposition day motion brought forward by the ND‐ P's foreign affairs critic Monday could set the cat among the pigeons in the federal Liberal caucus.
The non-binding motion calls on the government to take a number of actions in response to the war in the Middle East, including that it should "officially recognize the State of Palestine."
The motion was spon‐ sored by NDP Leader Jag‐ meet Singh with the party's foreign affairs critic, Heather McPherson, acting as the point person.
"We wrote this in a way that it's not supposed to be a 'gotcha' motion," she said.
"This was supposed to be a motion that aligned with in‐ ternational law, aligns with Canadian policy. So we're hopeful that we will have some support from the Liber‐ als and we're certainly seeing more movement from them over the last few days."
'I expect there will be a split:' Liberal MP
But the motion is also ex‐ pected to divide the govern‐ ment caucus.
"It's not the perfect mo‐ tion by any means, and no motion is. But when you look at the broad strokes of it, this is a push to support human rights," said Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who told CBC News that he will back it despite reservations.
"And I think it emphasizes Canada's role in this, which is to focus on and preserve hu‐ man rights and peace."
Erskine-Smith, MP for the Toronto riding of BeachesEast York, says he has heard a wide range of views from his constituents on the topic, but "my inbox is full of peo‐ ple saying, 'We want the vio‐ lence to end, we want civil‐ ians to be protected, we don't want to see more casu‐ alties. We don't want to see more kids die. And Canada has to do more to end the vi‐ olence.'"
Erskine-Smith also knows that his view is not shared by everyone in his party.
"I expect there will be a split," he said. "I think the government position will ob‐ viously matter a great deal to my colleagues."
'A huge slap in the face:' Housefather
One Liberal who definitely intends to oppose the mo‐ tion is Montreal's Anthony Housefather.
"It's incredibly meaningful in the sense that this would be a huge slap in the face to the vast majority of Canada's Jewish community," he told CBC News.
Housefather, MP for Mount Royal, says he objects to clauses in the motion that call for an immediate cease‐ fire, and for the suspension of all sales of military equip‐ ment to Israel.
He called it an "anti-Israel motion."
"Because it's a motion that essentially rewards Hamas for attacking Israel," Housefather said.
"It changes 50 years of consecutive Liberal and Con‐ servative governments posi‐ tions on the recognition of a Palestinian state to move away from the fact that it's something that would have to be negotiated by the par‐ ties where they agree on a territory and normally do rec‐ ognize the state."
Housefather pointed out that no G7 country has yet recognized Palestinian state‐ hood; Canada would be the first.
Indeed, a map of the wor‐ ld shows a stark North-South and East-West split on recog‐ nition. Of the UN's 193 mem‐ ber states, 139 have recog‐ nized Palestine, including al‐ most every country in South and Central America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe (mostly from their time in the Soviet Bloc).
Trudeau's eight years in office have produced a more uniformly anti-Palestinian UN voting record than even his famously pro-Israel prede‐ cessor Stephen Harper, but there have been some recent adjustments.
Starting in 2019, the Trudeau government began to vote in favour of an annual motion supporting Palestin‐ ian self-determination, al‐ though the prime minister has played down the signifi‐ cance of the change in com‐ ments to the Jewish commu‐ nity.
The Trudeau government has also sought to prevent Palestine from advancing its case for statehood through the courts.
Three different Liberal for‐ eign ministers have written to the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court asking it to refuse to hear Palestinian cases, partly on the grounds that Israel does not recognize the court.
Israeli Prime Minister Ben‐ jamin Netanyahu has person‐ ally written to Trudeau to ask for those Canadian interven‐ tions on behalf of Israel.
When the International Court of Justice met last month to consider the "legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Pales‐ tinian Territory, including East Jerusalem," the Trudeau government's submission again asked it to refuse to hear the case on the grounds that Israel did not recognize the court's jurisdiction, and that those matters were best left to negotiations between the parties.
The argument is not if, but when
McPherson says that Canada's official position that there should not be move‐ ment toward recognition un‐ til after final-status talks be‐ tween the two parties is "an excuse."
"This is a moment in time where we need to come up with a better solution for peace in the Middle East," she said.
Housefather says he agrees that "the two-state so‐ lution is absolutely neces‐ sary."
But "this is not the time to recognize a Palestinian state suddenly in contradiction to what our policy has been for decades. Because what this would do is say the policy has changed," he said.
"Why has the policy changed? Because Hamas started a war. And so I would be aghast, aghast if Canada changed its position as a re‐ sult."
McPherson disagrees. "I don't believe that stop‐ ping killing children, the end of the bloodshed, the end of starvation, getting humani‐ tarian aid to innocent people, getting the conflict to stop so that we are, we are able to move toward something that's more peaceful and just for Israelis and Palestinians, I don't think that's rewarding
Hamas," she said.
US, UK, France all inch toward recognition
Canada is not the only country where the idea of unilateral recognition of Palestine, without waiting for Israel, has gained ground since the war in Gaza began.
The Biden administration, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron and French Presi‐ dent Emmanuel Macron have all sent signals that they are moving in that direction.
Last month the Biden offi‐ cial leaked the news that it was not just thinking about recognition, but actively drawing up plans for recogni‐ tion to go into effect once the war in Gaza ends.
That came just days after Cameron, a former prime minister, said British recogni‐ tion of Palestine "can't come at the start of the process, but it doesn't have to be the very end of the process."
Last month France's Em‐ manuel Macron said his country had come to the same conclusion.
"Recognizing a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France,'' Macron said after meeting in Paris with Jordan's King Abdullah.
"We owe it to Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled on for too long. We owe it to Israelis, who lived through the worst antisemitic massacre of our time."
Warnings of red lines
Some of the measures the motion calls for have already happened. For example, it calls on the government to "immediately reinstate fund‐ ing and ensure long-term continued funding to the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and support the independent in‐ vestigation."
Canada restored funding to UNRWA on March 8, and has said it will support the in‐ vestigations by both the UN's investigative office and by former French Foreign Minis‐ ter Catherine Colonna.
The motion also calls on the government to "support the work of the International Court of Justice and the Inter‐ national Criminal Court," which the government has said it will do.
Housefather says he knows some of his caucus colleagues will support Mon‐ day's motion, but he's less concerned with how back‐ benchers vote than members of cabinet.
"I will be actively watching what the government posi‐ tion is on Monday, how the vote goes. And I will obvious‐ ly, as I continue to do, speak out in terms of what I believe is right," he said.
Housefather hinted that he might not remain in cau‐ cus if cabinet members back‐ ed recognition.
McPherson says she is hoping for a win but knows the vote faces an uphill climb.
"We're working as hard as we can to convince folks that this is the right path forward, that this is a fundamental shift in our foreign policy in the right direction," she said.
It's not clear which way the Bloc Québécois will go, although the party has sent signals of openness to the motion