The House of Commons passed a softened New Democrat motion on Monday night that no longer calls for the federal government to officially recognize Palestinian statehood after last-minute amendments brought in by the governing Liberals.
Softening the motion’s original language, one of the 14 amendments called for the government to work toward “the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution.”
The vote on the non-binding motion — initially set to take place at about 7:30 p.m. ET — stirred confusion among MPs. Late in the evening, Liberals moved to amend the opposition motion by replacing clauses entailing recognition and alluding to genocide — points that the NDP emphasized and that angered some Jewish communities.
Other amendments include referring to Hamas as a “terrorist organization,” affirming that Israel has a right to defend itself and demanding that Hamas release all hostages and lay down its arms.
While responding to a question from Conservative MP Michael Chong, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said there are issues with the non-binding motion brought forward by the NDP that would officially recognize Palestinian statehood.
The amended motion also calls for ceasing the further transfer of arms to Israel (instead of asking to suspend all sales of military equipment to Israel) and increasing efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas.
The amendments were tabled with the support of the NDP after several discussions behind the scenes.
A Liberal source told Radio-Canada the Liberals had argued that the political temperature needed to be lowered at a time of increasing public protests — and that immediate recognition of Palestinian statehood raised questions about borders and would have put Canada out of step with the rest of the G7.
The House of Commons passed a softened New Democrat motion on Monday night that no longer calls for the federal government to officially recognize Palestinian statehood after last-minute amendments brought in by the governing Liberals.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner called the evening an “embarrassment” and that foreign policy can’t be shaped on the fly with “an eleventh-hour” amendment process.
“This is such a serious issue and it’s so important that Canada shows leadership and gets it right,” Rempel Garner told CBC News ahead of the vote. “So what happened is very much the exact opposite of that.”
Due to what he called “massive changes,” Conservative MP Andrew Scheer called on the Speaker to consider ruling them out of order or “at the very least” defer the vote until tomorrow to give members the time to fully examine the motion and “absorb these massive changes.
Emerging from the vote, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said MPs were able to work all together to find “common ground” on a situation that “Canadians have been very concerned about.”
“That is why it was important to find a large consensus, working with many parliamentarians to make sure we were sending an important message to the world,” she said.
Liberals MPs Anthony Housefather, Ben Carr and Marco Mendecino voted against the motion.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a social media post that his party “forced the Liberals” to stop selling arms to the Israeli government, to support both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ), and to place sanctions on extremist settlers.
“Every single Conservative MP and some Liberals tried to block it — they failed,” Singh wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
‘Not without its faults’
Earlier Monday, Joly said the government wouldn’t base its foreign policy on the motion’s original aim of recognizing Palestinian statehood.
“We can’t change foreign policy based on an opposition motion,” Joly said during debate in the House of Commons.
Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7. The surprise assault left some 1,200 people — mostly civilians but also soldiers, police officers and security officials — dead in Israel according to officials and saw hundreds of hostages taken to Gaza.
Gaza health officials said that, as of last week, Israel’s military campaign had killed more than 31,000 people and displaced nearly two million more.
Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said Conservatives are in favour of a two-state solution but said that can’t be accomplished through a “unilateral declaration” in the House.
“It can only be achieved through a long, arduous process that will take months, if not years, of negotiations between the two parties at hand, the state of Israel and representatives of the Palestinian people,” he said, adding that Palestinian representatives would need to have popular support and must renounce violence and terrorism.
Liberal MP for Scarborough Centre Salma Zahid urged her colleagues to vote in favour of the motion, saying Canadians are demanding action.
“Either we stand for human rights everywhere and for everyone, or we don’t,” she said in the House. “Let’s be able to tell our next generation we were on the right side of history.”
Responding to a question from a Bloc Québécois MP, the NDP’s Lindsay Mathyssen said she and members of her community are “frustrated” that the government “seems to want to be able to take two sides on this” conflict.
“Ultimately, violence has to stop before conversations can begin,” said Mathyssen, the MP for London-Fanshaw.
Liberal MP for Mount Royal Anthony Housefather said the motion would create “a false equivalency between the state of Israel and the terrorist organization of Hamas.”
