Gaza Genocide on the Ballot as Canadians Head to the Polls
Voters who want to punish the Liberal Party over its Gaza policy but don't want the Conservatives to win feel stuck with no good options in Monday's election.
While Donald Trump’s tariffs have dominated the federal campaign trail in Canada, propelling a former central banker to the top of the polls, there is another major issue on some voters’ minds that could play a significant factor in Monday’s election: Palestine.
The race has echoes of the 2024 US election, where Democrats appeared to take for granted just how much their blanket support of Israel’s war on Gaza could come into play for Muslim, Arab, and progressive voters who could hold the key to a political win. Kamala Harris lost Michigan, with many Arab Americans and Muslims either choosing not to cast their ballots, or voting for Trump. Could Canada be headed in the same direction?
When he was first elected as prime minister in 2015, former Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau was known for his vocal commitment to human rights, and his meteoric rise was in part fueled by the support of minority groups who saw him as carrying on the legacy of his late father, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau – a leader in multiculturalism and immigration policy, who maintained Canada’s reputation as a peacekeeper on the global stage.
When the younger Trudeau initially refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza despite thousands of civilian deaths, many of those communities who had played a vital role in his political success felt it was a betrayal of the values he had come to be known by. The lack of support for Palestinian human rights created a deep rift between the Liberal government and the communities that had once propelled the party to power.
Trudeau proudly called himself a Zionist more than a year after the assault on Gaza began, and his government adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, conflating criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism – a move that was criticized by numerous civil society, human rights, and academic groups.
In January 2024, the National Council of Canadian Muslims abruptly canceled a meeting with Trudeau, and 300 Canadian Muslim organizations signed an open letter banning Liberal Parliament members from speaking at their mosques, citing Trudeau’s failure to condemn Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Making up nearly 5% of the population, Canadian Muslims were sending a message to the prime minister that their support for his party was not unconditional.
Mark Carney’s Cautious Approach
Like Harris in the US, after the prime minister’s resignation in January, Trudeau's successor was presented with the opportunity to set himself apart from the previous party leader on an issue that was clearly important to many Canadians. Mark Carney, who won the Liberal leadership race in March with more than 85% of the vote, appears to have taken a more cautious approach on Palestine.