Canadian government speaking with allies about Palestinian statehood recognition, official tells MPs

Ottawa has been speaking with like-minded countries about recognizing a Palestinian state, a government official told a committee of parliamentarians studying the quickest path toward such a declaration Thursday afternoon. 

"We're taking notes, we're talking to each other, we're weighing the considerations as a group of very like-minded countries," said Alexandre Lévêque, assistant deputy minister for Europe, the Middle East and Arctic Branch. 

Lévêque would not name any of the countries in question, citing the confidential nature of diplomatic conversations. 

"A number of our like-minded are struggling with the same concepts, and are reflecting on when the right time to recognize a Palestinian state would be," he said.

The motion studied by the committee, which Liberal MPs proposed in September, has been controversial. It was first discussed only behind closed doors, and earlier this week, parliamentarians heard from community groups with diametrically opposed views on whether Canada should move ahead with recognizing a Palestinian state immediately. 

Liberals break with Canadian tradition

For decades, successive Canadian governments have said recognizing a Palestinian state should come only after a negotiated peace agreement between the government of Israel and Palestinian leadership.

Last May, the Liberals broke with that tradition. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared that Canada could recognize Palestine before the conclusion of peace negotiations, in order to encourage a two-state solution, after calling Israel's shutting the door on it "unacceptable" and also criticizing Hamas's reign over Gaza as a "terrorist organization." 

That was after Canada abstained on a Palestinian statehood vote at the United Nations, instead of voting "no," which has also been long-standing foreign policy for this country. 

The NDP has continued to push for immediate recognition, while the Conservatives have said a change in policy would reward Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli figures.

Tory foreign affairs critic Michael Chong also brought up how neither the United States nor other members of the G7 have recognized Palestine yet. 

"What would be the fallout?" Chong asked, of Canada moving ahead with recognition without waiting for other allied countries.

Lévêque said it would be too speculative to engage on that, but said the issue "is very live" in countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

"Obviously I don't know the kind of conversations that are taking place among the transition team that is being formed in Washington," he said, alluding to U.S. President Donald Trump's re-election and incoming administration. 

No legal impediment to recognition: government lawyer 

A Government of Canada lawyer also told the committee there are no legal impediments for the recognition, which would be a purely political decision. 

"Based on practice, based on customary international law, the criteria are there, and it is totally available to the government to make an assessment based on those criteria," said Louis-Martin Aumais, a legal adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs. 

"The decision to recognize new states is a deliberately political act from another state," Aumais also said.

On Tuesday, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B'nai Brith Canada, two Jewish community advocacy groups, warned the committee against Canadian recognition, citing the risk of rewarding Hamas and the lack of Palestinian statehood institutions.

Other groups — such as Independent Jewish Voices, the Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, and the Coalition of Canadian Palestinian Organizations — argued the Canadian government's recognition would pave the way for an end to the conflict, and help Ottawa end what they deem its complicity in Israeli occupation. 

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel's ongoing assault on the enclave has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since last year.