Chair of Carney’s new faith advisory council defends its mandate and membership

Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller is defending the makeup and initial mandate of a faith advisory council Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Monday, as it faces criticism from Opposition Conservatives and Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith.

Part of this committee is to talk in a way that is open and frank and to tackle issues with a group of people that have spent a good deal of their career being subject to various forms of hate or have been incredible advocates in the field, Miller said to journalists on his way to a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.

Coming together in a way that isn’t polarizing, I think, is the first step.

Carney named former senator Marc Gold, also a previous chair of the Jewish Federations of Canada, as part of the council, in a speech at a Toronto synagogue on Monday . There, he also said Canada’s civic compact has failed the country’s Jewish community, called antisemitism a scourge and tasked the newly struck group with an initial mandate to look into the drivers of anti-Jewish hatred.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said ‘Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,’ in a speech on combatting antisemitism and hate on Monday at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple. ‘If that covenant fails one of our communities, it fails us all,’ Carney said.

Some of the remaining names on the council were released in a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, though with no mention of their background or credentials.

They are:

• Former Canadian Armed Forces member Martine Roy, a key plaintiff in a successful class-action suit against the federal government that won damages for members of the military and civil servants fired for being part of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
• Former champion Olympic speedskater Catriona Le May Doan, who currently chairs the Canada Games Council, which unites able-bodied athletes and those with physical and intellectual disabilities.
• Former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, the first Syrian-born Canadian elected to the House of Commons.
• Métis rights advocate Gary LaPlante, who has published three Indigenous newspapers.
• Simon Fraser University professor Aftab Erfan, who was Chief Equity Officer for the city of Vancouver.
• Edmonton-based human-rights lawyer Avnish Nanda.

Poilievre attacks Alghabra’s inclusion

Critics have particularly singled out Alghabra and Nanda since the council was announced.

I’m not sure he’s the right guy to combat antisemitism, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters in a media scrum on Parliament Hill, accusing Alghabra of previously lobbying to keep Hezbollah legal before he got into politics.

The last thing we need is another council.… This is the problem with Mark Carney. Every time there’s a problem, he creates a new bureaucracy, agency, council, that does nothing except pay high per diems and expenses to a bunch of Liberal insiders.

The Jerusalem Post published a story on Tuesday where it highlighted Alghabra’s past as a chair of the Canadian Arab Federation, pointing out he had argued against the use of the word terrorists in the media to describe the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is listed as a terror entity by the Canadian government.

The story also mentioned Nanda, who represented pro-Palestinian campus activists in a lawsuit against the University of Alberta in 2024.

Miller said he would not parse through the biographies of individual members when asked about Nanda.

The reality is, without defending any particular point of view, that lawyers are entitled and obligated to do their jobs, he said.

Let’s make sure that the standard for this committee isn’t one that is perfection, because we’d be naive to think that we can eradicate this overnight.

Miller says it’s ‘naive’ to expect new committee to eradicate antisemitism overnight

Identity Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday it would be ‘naive’ for Canadians to expect the new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion to ‘eradicate [antisemitism] overnight.’

Meanwhile, in a statement, Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada said one must question the capacity and authority of this body to carry out its task of reviewing the scale, scope and drivers of antisemitism.

The council lacks the mandate and expertise to lead the fight against antisemitism in Canada, B’nai Brith said.

We don’t see a council as a breakthrough, especially one that has taken months to convene.

Council’s full mandate wider than tackling antisemitism

Carney emphasized the council’s first tasks would be narrowly focused on combatting antisemitism when he spoke in Toronto on Monday.

But the council was initially announced in February as a body that would take over some of the work done by both the offices of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia and the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, which have been shuttered.

In that initial announcement, Canada’s Heritage Department said the council would build bridges between communities and combat all forms of racism and hate, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.

It said it would create a network of trusted leaders from all communities — including civil society, academia, youth leaders and Indigenous Peoples — to provide expert advice to inform the council’s work.