Marco Navarro-Genie is the Vice President of Research and Policy at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. With Barry Cooper, he is co-author of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).Mark Carney has made an announcement — of an announcement. He says he has decided that Canada will formally recognize a Palestinian state in September at the UN General Assembly in New York. Not now, but later. This meta‑announcement is political theatre disguised as principle to disguise the PM’s failures in securing a trade deal with the US.For starters, in the last 18 months, Canada’s own Parliament has twice rebuffed proposals for formal recognition:On March 18, 2024, MPs voted on a New Democratic Party motion calling for unilateral recognition of Palestine. Marco Mendicino, who later became Mark Carney’s first Chief of Staff, even voted against it. Liberals amended the motion mid-debate to strip the recognition language and shift focus to settlement condemnation and negotiated peace. The revised motion passed 204‑117, but the original call for direct recognition was gutted (Le Monde.fr, Reuters).On November 27, 2024, Liberal MP Shafqat Ali reignited the push, stating “it is time for Canada to recognize the state of Palestine,” but that motion remained an expression of opinion, with no legal or binding effect (House of Commons).Parliamentarians, essentially the same group in the House now, have deferred recognition to a negotiated solution, not unilateral decree. Yet, Carney now promises to do what Parliament twice declined to do.Why now—and why Carney? The announced announcement came just days before the trade negotiation deadline with the Trump administration over a US–Canada trade deal would be missed on August 1. It isn’t about moral leadership. This is about a political narrative to protect Carney’s political bacon and guard him against the unpopularity of failing to secure the US trade deal he boasted only he could get..Palestine is a distraction. Trump declared recognition would make the agreement “very hard” (Le Monde.fr). That reaction is precisely the outcome Carney seeks. By publicly threatening recognition only in September, he lays bait. As Trump walks away or insists on a reversal, Carney will point fingers at American interference and cast the failure, his failure, as an assault on Canadian sovereignty.Domestically, this move virtually sets up the same script that got Carney elected. So, pause for applause from progressive Laurentian urban elites, portraying Trump and the US as the villain, and framing the former banker as Canada’s steadfast defender. All the while, real economic stakes, the ones that matter to Canadians, become collateral in the grand storyline.Look closer: If trade talks fail, tariffs and barriers will follow on products outside CUSMA, and businesses will suffer, including those in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Yet, Ottawa writes the script. Carney snacks on Laurentian moral capital while farming out the bill to the Prairies.The headlines already blare: “Canada will recognize Palestinian state in September.” But real influence on peace is missing: no enforcement, no reconciliation mechanisms, no Israeli‑Palestinian guarantees. It rewards ossified Palestinian leadership. It risks alienating our most vital trading partner, all for symbolic optics..This stunt endangers the Canadian ship to protect one political life raft. Carney may gain popularity in Quebec and Ontario, and in Ottawa’s corridors, but at what cost? Confidence in Canadian statecraft weakens. Our national interest is placed in jeopardy so that Carney can hide domestic policy failures while appearing to defend Canadian sovereignty in the eyes of the gullible “elbows-up” crowd.Announcing an announcement — it’s theatrics, not statesmanship. And doing so to bait a foreign leader and deflect political failure is manipulative and calculating, not courageous.Recognizing Palestine might one day be justified. But recognizing it this way, against the will of Parliament just months ago, is bad governance. It carves away Canada’s sovereignty under the guise of defending it. It replaces serious diplomacy with staged symbolism. And it trades an already-eroding economic security for Ottawa’s political convenience.One would think that Canada deserves policymakers who place national interest above their political preservation. But Laurentian voters are about to fall for the same mindless “Orange Man bad” narrative. So, perhaps not.Marco Navarro-Genie is the Vice President of Research and Policy at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. With Barry Cooper, he is co-author of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).
