A prime minister who faces open rebellion from within the ranks of his own party’s staffers should think long and hard about taking a walk in the autumn leaves.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
More than 50 Liberal ministerial staffers, mostly of Muslim and Arab origin, are refusing to volunteer in the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun by-election because they object to their own party’s stand on the conflict in Gaza, revealing how deeply that conflict is tearing at the Liberal Party.
And while this speaks to the internal division of a tired government, it also reveals how starkly polarized Canadians have become over the Middle East.
Evan Dyer and Raffy Boudjikanian reported for CBC News last week that 52 Liberal staffers working in ministers’ offices had sent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a letter saying they refused to work as volunteers in the Montreal riding because they objected to their own party’s and their own government’s position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“While many of us started our political careers in elections as volunteers, we can no longer in good conscience campaign for a party that excludes us and our values,” they wrote, demanding that the Liberal government condemn Israel’s actions and recognize Palestine as a state.
I have to say I have never heard of anything like this at any level of government, ever. Ministerial staffers are not public servants. They are hired to work for, and promote, their minister and their government. During elections and by-elections, they leave their job and work on the campaign. They are party partisans. These partisans have gone on strike.
Former MP Marlene Jennings was one of a number of Liberal loyalists who publicly expressed their outrage at the mutiny. “If those staffers actually had the little bit of democratic values/fundamental ethics, they would have resigned en masse,” she tweeted. “But they don’t, do they!”
All this is dismal news for the Liberals. LaSalle-Émard-Verdun is typically a safe seat for them. But so was Toronto-St. Paul’s, which the Conservatives snatched away in a by-election in June. And the NDP and Bloc Québécois both think they have a shot at stealing the riding away from the Grits on Sept. 16. There will be other volunteers available, but the optics are appalling.
A prime minister who faces open rebellion from within the ranks of his own party’s staffers should think long and hard about taking a walk in the autumn leaves.
But this rebellion also speaks to deepening fissures within Canada itself over the Middle East. The Conservatives have always stood four-square with Israel. “I am a friend of the State of Israel, and I will be a friend of the State of Israel everywhere I go,” Pierre Poilievre declared at a synagogue in Montreal in April.
The NDP is more supportive of the rights of Palestinians. In March, the party put forward in the House a non-binding motion to recognize a Palestinian state and to ban the sale of military goods and technology to Israel. The Liberals were able to get their supply-and-confidence partners to water down the motion’s wording, which eventually passed with the support of both parties and the Bloc Québécois.
But three Liberal MPs voted against the motion, deeming it too critical of Israel. Now Muslim and Arab staffers are protesting that their party is too supportive of Israel.
The Liberal government has condemned the horrific Hamas attacks of Oct. 7. It supports Israel’s right to defend itself. It is alarmed by the civilian casualties in Gaza. It promotes a ceasefire, the return of hostages and the resumption of negotiations aimed at seeking a two-state solution to the decades of strife.
That is the position of most Western governments, and I suspect of most Canadians.
Perhaps a less tired government, a more experienced foreign minister (Mélanie Joly is the Liberals’ fifth), a more statesmanlike prime minister would be able to contain and even reconcile those tensions within the party and the country. These Liberals cannot.
Ugly things are happening in our land. Palestinian supporters are harassing, intimidating and frightening Jewish Canadians on campuses and in their community. Political parties are polarizing around pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sentiments.
And the one party that has always tried to achieve balance in this decades-old dispute, that was a leading contributor to the creation of the state of Israel, that helped broker an end to the Suez Crisis and contributed peacekeepers to the region for decades, is no longer able to contain the tensions here at home, or even within itself.