Mark Carney has done nothing to be eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is meant to reward those who defend human rights or build peace. Carney’s record on Palestine and the Gaza genocide alone should immediately disqualify him.  

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article is available on Substack.  

In recent months, a curious narrative has taken shape in international media. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is being promoted as a plausible contender for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. His name has appeared in speculative lists, with prediction markets briefly pushing him into the top tier of likely recipients, and commentators have framed him as a stabilizing force in a world destabilized by Donald Trump’s destructive foreign and economic policies. Carney’s January speech at Davos, where he urged “middle powers” to defend multilateralism and resist Trump’s coercive tactics, was widely praised in Western policy circles. But praise for a speech, no matter how consequential, has nothing to do with building peace. And the idea that Carney should be considered for the world’s most prestigious peace award is not merely misguided—it is symptomatic of a Nobel Committee that has lost its sense of purpose.

The Nobel Peace Prize was once reserved for individuals whose actions demonstrably prevented war, protected vulnerable populations, reshaped the moral landscape of global politics, or achieved real peace. Lester Pearson’s 1957 award—earned for creating the UN peacekeeping force that defused the Suez Crisis and prevented a potential nuclear confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union is the archetype of who should be awarded the prize. Pearson’s achievement was concrete, measurable, and historically consequential. Carney’s record, by contrast, is a patchwork of speeches, diplomatic positioning, meetings with leaders at international forums, and political theatrics that have produced no meaningful contribution to peace.

The Nobel Peace Prize’s drift into symbolism

To understand why Carney’s consideration for the prize is so troubling, one must first acknowledge the long‑running crisis of credibility facing the Nobel Committee. Over the past quarter century, the award has increasingly been given not for results achieved, but for aspirations. Barack Obama’s 2009 prize remains the most notorious example, awarded less than a year into his presidency, before he had achieved anything of substance in the realm of peace or diplomacy. Obama himself admitted he did not deserve it. Yet the Nobel Committee insisted on rewarding “hope,” “promise,” and “potential”—concepts that have no place in a prize meant to honour concrete achievements.

This drift did not begin with Obama, nor did it end with him. The United Nations received the prize in 2001 for “building a more peaceful world,” despite its inability to prevent dozens of wars since its creation which have destabilized regions around the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency won in 2005 for preventing nuclear proliferation, even though France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and South Africa all developed nuclear arsenals under its watch (with South Africa giving up theirs in 1991). The European Union received the prize in 2012 for advancing peace and reconciliation, despite its role in imposing austerity policies that destabilized Southern Europe and fuelled political extremism. Other awards—to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2017), the 2018 laureates fighting sexual violence, and the World Food Programme (2020)—were given not for ending war, but for trying hard. But trying hard is not peace.

The Nobel Committee has increasingly treated the Peace Prize like a participation trophy, rewarding effort, symbolism, and political messaging rather than measurable outcomes. If Carney receives the 2026 prize, it will be yet another confirmation that the award has become detached from the realities of global conflict and human suffering.

Carney’s “achievements” are optics without substance

Carney’s supporters argue that he has become a global voice for stability, multilateralism, and resistance to Donald Trump’s destabilizing policies. They point to his Davos speech, his rising popularity in Europe, and his role in pushing Canada toward becoming the EU’s first “associate member.” They highlight his inclusion on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2026 and his reputation as a “middle‑power leader” who did not blink in the face of American pressure.  But none of this constitutes peacebuilding.

Carney’s Davos speech was an appeal for economic cooperation and trade and political stability. It was not a call for demilitarization, conflict resolution, or protecting human rights. It was a speech about economies and markets, not morality. Canada’s trade war with the United States is not peace work, it is economic brinkmanship Carney was forced to deal with in response to Trump’s trade war. His efforts to build alliances with Europe and other nations around the world are not peace initiatives, they are geopolitical positioning. His rising profile is the result of political theatre amplified by media outlets hungry for a Western leader who can stand up to Trump.

Prediction markets reflect this reality. They are driven by a gambling mindset, media buzz, and political narratives—not insider knowledge of the Nobel Committee’s deliberations. Carney’s brief appearance at the top of the odds board was a reflection of public fascination, not any substantive achievements on his part.

Carney’s record on Palestine is a moral failure

If the Nobel Peace Prize is meant to reward those who defend human rights or build peace, Carney’s record on Palestine and the Gaza genocide alone should immediately disqualify him.

Throughout Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza—which numerous human rights organizations and legal scholars have described as genocide—Carney has consistently refused to condemn Israel’s actions. Like Justin Trudeau before him, he will not even utter the word “genocide” to describe the scale of Israeli atrocities. At the same time, his government has continued exporting Canadian‑made weapons to Israel despite a House of Commons resolution passed in March 2024 calling for an immediate halt to arms sales. Under Carney’s leadership, Canada has also maintained full trade relations with Israel and provided diplomatic cover for policies that plainly violate international law. These are not the actions of a peacebuilder. They are the choices of a leader who places geopolitical alliances above human life.

Additionally, in a 2025 interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Carney stated that Palestinians could have a state only if it were a “Zionist Palestinian State”—a phrase that effectively demands that Palestinians adopt the ideology of their oppressor as a condition for sovereignty. These are words that send a message of moral capitulation not diplomacy.

In September 2025, Carney announced that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state, but only under conditions that mirrored Israeli demands. His recognition was not an act of support for Palestinian statehood but rather a mostly meaningless act designed to address public criticism at home and appease Western allies while avoiding any meaningful confrontation with Israel over the atrocities it has been committing for three years.

A man who refuses to condemn genocide, who continues to arm a genocidal state, and who demands that an oppressed people adopt the ideology of their oppressor in order to gain support for their sovereign ambitions has no business even being considered for a peace prize.

The Nobel Committee’s irrelevance

If the Nobel Committee awards Carney the 2026 Peace Prize, it will confirm what critics have argued for years—that the prize has become detached from the realities of global conflict and human suffering. It has become a tool for Western political messaging, a way to reward those who maintain the global status quo rather than those who challenge it.

Carney’s nomination if it exists at all, since the Nobel shortlist is secret and prediction markets are purely speculative, is rooted in optics, not substance. He is potentially being rewarded for standing up to Trump, not for advancing peace, celebrated for speeches not for actions. He is being elevated by Western elites who mistake efforts towards political and economic stability for moral leadership.

The Nobel Peace Prize should honour those who confront injustice, defend human rights, and prevent violence. Carney has done none of these things.

The fact is that Carney has no business receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, let alone being nominated for it. He has done nothing of substance to advance peace, protect vulnerable populations, or confront global injustices. His record with regard to the oppression and suffering of Palestinians is a moral stain, his rise in prediction markets is a media phenomenon, and his Davos speech, while notable, was political posturing.

If he has been nominated and the Nobel Committee awards him the prize, it will be yet another sign that the Peace Prize has lost its meaning. It will confirm that the award has become a symbol of Western self‑congratulation rather than a recognition of genuine moral courage.

The Nobel Peace Prize should honor those who change the world. Carney has been around long enough to initiate changes to the global order and encourage other middle powers to do the same. But none of them have anything to do with building peace or defending the rights of the persecuted or oppressed.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau: The morally bankrupt leaders who ignored the Gaza genocide

Trudeau's and Carney's refusal to acknowledge that genocide is taking place in Gaza is factually indefensible and politically grotesque.  

By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared in mid-May that the treatment of civilians aboard the Sumud Flotilla to Gaza—kidnapped in international waters by Israeli forces—was “abominable”, he revealed far more about his government than he intended. His statement was meant to project moral outrage, to signal that Canada still possesses a moral compass. Instead, it exposed a government that has lost its ethical bearings entirely. Because if Carney truly believed that the abuse of civilians was “abominable,” he would have said so long before a video of Itamar Ben‑Gvir taunting bound activists forced his hand.

But Carney did not, and the reason is simple. Carney has no moral compass, especially when it comes to how Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs are treated, whether by a foreign government or by his own administration in Canada.

Mark Carney only entered politics in early 2025, after Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as Liberal leader. Before that, Carney spent decades in elite financial institutions—Goldman Sachs, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England—where he cultivated a reputation for technocratic competence and global statesmanship. Yet in all those years, through Israel’s decades-long brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, its repeated assaults on the Gaza Strip, and finally its ongoing genocide, Carney never made a public comment. Not a word about the siege. Not a word about the occupation. Not a word about apartheid. Not a word about the mass killing of Palestinians. And this is for the most part understandable given the trajectory of his career.

However, his silence was not accidental, but it was revealing. It was the silence of a man who had never needed to confront the consequences of Western power, who had never needed to reckon with the violence that Western powers inflicted on the world’s most vulnerable, under the guise of maintaining an “international rules based order.” And so when he entered politics, his silence became a part of Canadian government policy.

Trudeau’s legacy of weakness and denial

However, this wasn’t new policy. Carney inherited this moral vacuum from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose own record on Israel and Palestine was defined by weakness, evasion, and denial. Trudeau made occasional statements expressing “concern” about Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank, but these were always carefully calibrated to avoid offending Israel or the US.  Ultimately they were meaningless because he condemned very little of Israel’s criminal acts, recognized even less, and took no action to uphold international law or hold Israel accountable.

And at the end of his prime ministership, Trudeau finally said the quiet part out loud—he declared himself to be a Zionist. With that admission, everything became clear. His refusal to condemn Israel’s actions was not diplomatic caution, it was ideological alignment. His refusal to recognize genocide was not uncertainty, it was political loyalty to a foreign state. His government’s unwavering support for Israel, even as the death toll in Gaza climbed into the tens of thousands, was not a lack of courage, it was a deliberate choice and admission that Trudeau was an anti-Palestinian racist.

When Carney became prime minister he simply continued Trudeau’s policy of denial, complicity, and moral collapse.

Choosing not to see genocide in Gaza

Since it started both Trudeau and Carney refused to acknowledge that genocide was taking place in Gaza.  This denial is not only factually indefensible, it is politically grotesque. Because the list of institutions, experts, and humanitarian organizations that have declared Israel’s assault on Gaza’s population as genocidal is unprecedented in modern history.

Among the organizations and individuals recognizing that Israel is committing the crime of genocide as defined under Genocide Convention are:

• the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry;
• the UN Special Committee;
• the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights;
• the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories;
• the former UN Humanitarian Chief;
• Amnesty International;
• Human Rights Watch;
• Israeli human rights group B’Tselem;
• Physicians for Human Rights Israel;
• Doctors Without Borders;
• Oxfam;
• Save the Children;
• Action Aid;
• Action on Armed Violence;
• the International Federation of Human Rights;
• the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS);
• Melanie O’Brien, president of the IAGS;
• Dirk Moses, editor of the Journal of Genocide Research;
• Martin Shaw, author of What Is Genocide?;
• Leading Israeli Holocaust scholars: Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Daniel Blatman, Raz Segal, Shmuel Lederman;
• the Norwegian Refugee Council;
• the Danish Refugee Council;
• Refugees International;
• the International Rescue Committee;
• Moshe Yaalon, former head of Israel’s military;
• Amiram Levin, former deputy head of Mossad;
• Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel; and
• the 30 nations supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

This list is not merely long—it is overwhelming. It represents the broadest consensus on genocide since Rwanda. Yet Canada, a nation that claims to champion human rights, has rejected all of it.

Canada is violating its international legal obligations

Under the Genocide Convention, Canada is obligated not only to prevent genocide but to punish those who participate in it. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Canada must act to stop grave breaches, including collective punishment, targeting civilians, and starvation as a method of warfare. Under the UN Charter, Canada must uphold international peace and security and oppose violations of international humanitarian law.

Instead, Canada continues to:

• Sell weapons and weapons components to Israel;
• Provide diplomatic cover for Israel;
• Refuse to sanction Israeli officials responsible for mass atrocities;
• Reject international legal findings of genocide; and
• Attack Canadian human rights advocates who speak out.

This is not neutrality. It is complicity.

Carney’s Hypocrisy Is Impossible to Ignore

Carney’s condemnation of Ben‑Gvir was not wrong. Ben‑Gvir is a racist extremist who celebrated his birthday with a cake emblazoned with a noose, who raised a champagne glass when the Knesset advanced a death‑penalty bill that applies only to Palestinians, and who has repeatedly called for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. But Carney’s selective outrage is revealing. Ben‑Gvir is not an outlier; he is the distilled expression of a much wider system of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocidal violence in Israeli society — a society where a 2025 poll showed that 47% of Jewish Israelis supported the Gaza genocide. Singling him out for sanctions while continuing to arm the state he serves is not moral leadership. It is political posturing, a gesture designed to look principled while avoiding the far more consequential act of holding Israel itself accountable.

If Carney truly believed Ben‑Gvir’s actions were “unacceptable,” he would sanction the entire Israeli government and military leadership. He would halt all weapons exports immediately. He would prosecute Canadians who have joined the Israeli military and participated in war crimes. He would recognize the genocide that the rest of the world has already named.

He has done none of these things.

Historically, Canada avoided pursuing war criminals

There is a myth in Canada that the country has a proud and robust history of prosecuting war criminals. It is a comforting story, one that allows Canadians to imagine themselves as steadfast defenders of human rights and international justice. But the moment this narrative is examined with even minimal scrutiny, it collapses. In truth, Canada has not made much effort to hunt down war criminals since World War Two, and its record is defined far more by avoidance, delay, and half‑measures than by genuine accountability.

For decades, Canada preferred to look away rather than confront perpetrators of atrocity, just as it is doing with Israel. Instead of launching serious investigations, pursuing criminal trials, or building the legal capacity to prosecute genocidal criminals, Canada has relied on bureaucratic tools—denaturalization and deportation—that allow the government to quietly remove individuals without ever proving guilt in court. These measures create the appearance of action while avoiding actual prosecution. Far from being a global leader in accountability, Canada’s war‑crimes record is a story of institutional reluctance, political timidity, and systemic inertia. It is a record that reveals a country far more committed to protecting its own political convenience than to upholding the principles of international law it claims to champion.

Following the Second World War Canada prosecuted a small number of Nazi war criminals immediately afterwards—almost all of them POWs already in Canadian custody. After 1948, however, Canada entered a 30‑year period of complete inactivity. During the 1950s through the 1980s, hundreds of suspected Nazi collaborators entered Canada, yet the government made no serious attempt to locate, investigate, or criminally prosecute them.

The 1985 Deschênes Commission confirmed what survivors and human‑rights advocates had long known: Canada had never meaningfully prosecuted Nazi war criminals domestically, despite ample evidence and decades of opportunity. The few criminal trials attempted in the 1990s—including the high‑profile case of Imre Finta—ended in acquittals, after which Canada effectively abandoned domestic prosecution altogether.

The rare exception of Rwandan génocidaires

Canada’s record of domestic war‑crimes prosecution is remarkably thin, and its only true success stands out precisely because it is so rare. The single case in which Canada managed to secure a conviction under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act was the prosecution of Désiré Munyaneza, a Rwandan génocidaire found guilty in 2009. His conviction was historic: the first time Canada used the principle of universal jurisdiction to try an individual for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed abroad. Munyaneza’s trial demonstrated that Canada could hold perpetrators of mass atrocity accountable when it chose to invest the political will, legal expertise, and prosecutorial resources required.

But Munyaneza’s case was the exception, not the beginning of a sustained effort. The only other attempt at a domestic war‑crimes trial under the same legislation—Jacques Mungwarere—ended in acquittal in 2013. After that, Canada effectively retreated from the field. No further domestic prosecutions followed, and no institutional momentum emerged to build on the precedent set. Instead of developing a robust system capable of confronting atrocity, Canada returned to its longstanding reliance on administrative measures.  The result is a war‑crimes record defined not by a legacy of accountability, but by one conviction surrounded by decades of institutional reluctance.

Canada’s support for Israel is built on lies

For decades, Canadian governments have insisted that Canada is a defender of human rights, a champion of international law, and a guardian of the rules‑based order. But these claims collapse under the weight of scrutiny, and certainly as we witness Canada’s lack of action around the Gaza genocide.

Canada cannot claim to defend human rights while arming a genocidal state. Canada cannot claim to uphold international law while ignoring the world’s legal findings. Canada cannot claim to support peace while enabling mass slaughter.

The Carney government’s position is not simply hypocritical—it is morally bankrupt, as was that of Justin Trudeau’s government

What is truly “unacceptable”

When he saw the video of Israeli minister Ben-Gvir taunting the imprisoned activists from the Sumud Flotilla he used the word “unacceptable” in reaction to what he saw. But what is truly unacceptable is Canada’s complicity. What is unacceptable is the refusal to name genocide. What is unacceptable is the sale of Canadian weapons to a state committing mass atrocities. What is unacceptable is the betrayal of international law. What is unacceptable is the dehumanization of Palestinians through complicity.

Carney’s government has failed the most basic test of moral leadership—the ability to recognize human suffering and act to stop it. Instead, Canada has become a bystander to genocide, and worse, an enabler of the crime of crimes.

History will not forget this moment. And it will not forgive those who chose silence, denial, and complicity over justice.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Celebrating Canada Day: A rightward political drift, post 9/11, and sleepwalking towards a cliff (Part 2)

The convergence of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, the escalating attacks on residential school truth‑telling, and the vilification of pro‑Palestinian demonstrators reveals a political environment where dissent is increasingly criminalized and racialized communities are systematically targeted.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As Canadians get set to celebrate Canada Day tomorrow, we all need to demand an honest assessment of the country’s political trajectory. Since the post‑9/11 era, Canada has been drifting steadily to the right, reshaping its laws, institutions, and public discourse in ways that erode civil liberties, normalize racism and Islamophobia, and legitimize far‑right political views. Many Canadians, comforted by the belief that “it can’t happen here,” are sleepwalking Canada towards a cliff and the rest of us are doing little or nothing to stop it.

The post‑9/11 security climate marked a turning point. Under the banner of fighting terrorism, Canada expanded surveillance, strengthened security agencies, and introduced legislation that disproportionately targeted Muslims, Arabs, and other racialized communities. Islamophobia became embedded in policy and practice, with Muslim communities treated as suspect and their institutions subjected to heightened scrutiny. This securitized mindset has never fully receded, it has simply shifted targets and language.

Recent commentary has documented how Islamophobia and anti‑Palestinian racism have become entrenched at the highest levels of Canadian politics. One analysis of the appointment of MP Anthony Housefather as special advisor on antisemitism argues that his record of pushing anti‑Palestinian narratives reflects a government willing to appease pro‑Israel organizations while ignoring the surge in hate against Palestinians and Muslims. This is not an isolated incident; it reflects a broader pattern in which those who protest genocide are smeared, surveilled, and punished.

Since October 7, 2023, this pattern has intensified. Palestinians and their allies have been vilified as “terrorists” and “antisemitic” simply for opposing Israeli state violence and pointing out that it is committing genocide in Gaza. Pro‑Palestinian protesters have faced harassment, doxing, job loss, and political condemnation. It can be safely said that Palestinians are “the most persecuted people in the world today,” in light of the fact that Western leaders—including Canada’s—have seemingly shed their humanity towards Palestinians by treating their deaths at Israeli hands as acceptable collateral damage. The refusal of both the Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney governments to intervene to stop genocide, do nothing beyond issuing PR platitudes, even as polls show overwhelming Canadian opposition to current Canadian policy, exposes the gap between democratic rhetoric and actual practice.

This widening gap is where Canada’s rightward drift becomes most visible. When hundreds of thousands of Canadians march against the Gaza genocide and their leaders respond by continuing arms sales, diplomatic cover, and launching smear campaigns against protesters, democracy becomes a façade. A detailed analysis of Canada’s complicity in the Gaza genocide argues that successive governments have maintained military cooperation with Israel despite clear evidence of genocidal acts, thereby breaching both domestic and international legal obligations. This is not just foreign policy failure; it is moral bankruptcy.

At the same time, Canada’s right‑wing parties have moved further into territory that can only be described as quasi‑fascist. The Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre has embraced rhetoric and talking points that mirror those of the Republican Party under Donald Trump—attacks on “woke” culture, demonization of refugees and immigrants, hostility toward journalists and academics, and a constant framing of political opponents as enemies of “real Canadians.” While the specifics differ, the underlying strategy is familiar—weaponize resentment, stoke cultural division, and present strongman politics as the solution to perceived chaos.

The People’s Party of Canada (PPC), led by Maxime Bernier, has played a crucial role in legitimizing far‑right discourse even without major electoral success. A 2021 analysis of the PPC argues that the party has normalized racist, xenophobic, and anti‑immigrant narratives, giving them a veneer of political respectability. By railing against “globalists,” attacking immigration, and flirting with conspiracy theories, the PPC has helped shift the narrative—making previously fringe ideas part of mainstream debate. Even if the PPC fails at the ballot box, its impact on political culture is undeniable.

This is how far‑right politics advances, not only through winning elections, but through changing what is considered acceptable to say in public. When parties like the PPC push fascist talking points—about “invasions,” “replacement,” or the supposed threat posed by racialized communities—they create space for larger parties to adopt softer versions of the same narratives. Over time, the centre of gravity moves rightward, and what once seemed extreme becomes ordinary.

Meanwhile, Canada’s media ecosystem has often amplified these shifts rather than resisting them. Right‑wing commentators and outlets have demonized pro‑Palestinian protesters, framed solidarity encampments as security threats, and echoed government talking points about “extremism” and “hate” against Jews, even though many Jews are part of the movement. Anti‑Palestinian racism and Islamophobia are not only present in political institutions, they are reproduced daily in Canada’s news media ecosystem, through coverage and opinion columns. Multiple published commentaries have argued that this media environment dehumanizes Palestinians and legitimizes state violence against them.

The convergence of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, the escalating attacks on residential school truth‑telling, and the vilification of pro‑Palestinian demonstrators reveals a political environment where dissent is increasingly criminalized and racialized communities are systematically targeted. The same forces that once justified the dispossession and dehumanization of Indigenous nations now rationalize contemporary efforts to suppress solidarity with Palestinians. Residential school denialism and anti‑Indigenous propaganda have become tools for undermining truth‑telling and defending the settler‑colonial status quo, while politicians, right‑wing media, and pro‑Israel advocacy networks deploy similar tactics to delegitimize pro‑Palestinian voices — branding them extremists, security threats, or enemies of “Canadian values.” In both cases, historical and ongoing state violence is obscured through narratives that portray marginalized communities as dangerous or suspect, and those who challenge official narratives as destabilizing forces. As a result, protests against genocide and colonialism are met with police crackdowns, university sanctions, employment terminations, and political condemnation, reinforcing a broader pattern in which far‑right narratives seep into mainstream discourse and the machinery of the state is mobilized to silence those who resist it.

Canadians often comfort themselves with the belief that “we’re not like the United States or the United Kingdom” and that what’s happening to their politics can’t happen here. But the trajectories are increasingly similar. In the US, the far right has captured The Republican Party and reshaped national politics around authoritarian impulses and racial resentment. In the UK, xenophobia and anti‑immigrant hysteria have become central pillars of political discourse, with far‑right groups exploiting economic instability and cultural anxiety. Canada is not immune because it is simply at an earlier stage of the same process.

As Canadians get set to mark Canada Day they must remember that a nation complicit in genocide cannot credibly celebrate itself as a force for good. When Canada continues to sell weapons to a state accused of genocide, refuses to support international legal efforts to hold that state accountable, and punishes those who protest its actions, it forfeits any claim to moral leadership. Silence is not neutrality—it is complicity.

Canada is at a crossroads. It can continue drifting down the path towards a right-wing, authoritarian future, with the scapegoating of racialized peoples, and moral abdication, or it can choose a different future. But that choice will not be made by politicians alone. It will be made by Canadians who decide whether to accept the drift or resist it.

Millions of Canadians will celebrate Canada Day tomorrow and they are free to do so. But if they celebrate without reflection, without reckoning, without pushing back against the rightward political drift that has been happening for years, they may find that the country they once celebrated no longer exists. And by then, it may be too late to turn back from the cliff.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Celebrating Canada Day: Colonial foundations and the myth of innocent celebrations (Part 1/2)

Canada is a settler‑colonial state which required the dispossession of Indigenous lands, the destruction of Indigenous societies, and the attempted erasure of Indigenous cultures and identities.

By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

In two days—July 1st—millions of Canadians will celebrate Canada Day. Yet few pause to ask what, exactly, is being celebrated. The familiar rituals—fireworks, barbecues, flags, and patriotic speeches—invite a comforting narrative of national unity and progress. But beneath this spectacle lies a reality that cannot be reconciled with easy patriotism—Canada was built on Indigenous genocide, white supremacy, and systemic racism. To celebrate Canada Day without acknowledging these foundations is to participate in a collective act of denial and an erasure of history.

Canada is a settler‑colonial state. Its creation required the dispossession of Indigenous lands, the destruction of Indigenous governance systems and societies, and the attempted erasure of Indigenous cultures and identities. Scholars of genocide and settler colonialism have long argued that colonization is not merely about land theft—it is about the destruction of peoples, laws, and ways of life. Residential schools, the Indian Act, forced relocations, the reserve system, and the criminalization of Indigenous ceremonies were not unfortunate mistakes. They were deliberate tools of a project aimed at eliminating Indigenous nations as self‑determining peoples, and as a result are today seen as acts of genocide.

In recent years, Canada has been forced to confront this history more directly. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluded in 2019 that the violence inflicted on Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people amounts to “deliberate race, identity, and gender‑based genocide.” Parliament has acknowledged genocide in relation to residential schools, and political leaders have used the term publicly. Yet recognition without transformation is hollow. The structures that enabled genocide—policing, courts, resource extraction, child welfare systems—continue to produce what scholars call “multisided violence,” where state action and inaction normalize conditions in which Indigenous people can be harmed or killed with impunity.

Canada Day, in this context, becomes a ritual of denying this nation’s ugly history. It invites Canadians to celebrate this country without reckoning with the fact that its very existence depended on the destruction of Indigenous societies. Even when Canada Day events include acknowledgements of Indigenous peoples, the underlying narrative often remains one of progress and benevolence: that Canada has “learned from its past” and is now on a path of reconciliation. Yet the rise of residential school denialism and anti‑Indigenous politics on the far right shows that even the limited gains of truth‑telling are under attack.

Some communities have attempted to reshape Canada Day to reflect this reality. In Winnipeg, organizers renamed the main July 1st event “A New Day,” cancelled fireworks, and centred reflection on colonialism and residential schools rather than uncritical patriotism. Such efforts are important, but they remain exceptions. Across the country, the dominant message is still one of pride, promoting unity, and celebrating with a nationalistic fervour—often with only a brief, symbolic nod to Indigenous history and suffering.

The problem is not simply that Canada has a violent past. It is that this violence continues in the present. Indigenous communities still face disproportionate rates of poverty, incarceration, child apprehension, and police violence. Encampments of unhoused people—many of them Indigenous—are destroyed in the name of “public safety,” while solidarity encampments protesting genocide and colonialism are violently dismantled by police. The criminalization of poverty and dissent is not a deviation from Canadian values, it is a continuation of the logic that has always governed this country, one where some lives are expendable in the service of order and property.

Contemporary commentary has drawn connections between Canada’s colonial foundations and its foreign policy. One writer argues that Canada’s complicity in the Gaza genocide reflects a continuity between domestic colonial violence and international support for state violence abroad. The argument suggests that a nation built on genocide at home is predisposed to enable or excuse genocide elsewhere. This perspective reframes Canada Day not as a celebration of national virtue but as a reminder of unresolved injustice.

Canada’s self‑image as a human‑rights champion is fundamentally at odds with its record. A country that still struggles to provide clean drinking water to Indigenous communities, that has failed to implement the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and that remains complicit in ongoing violence against Indigenous women and girls cannot credibly claim to embody justice and equality. When Canadians gather on July 1st to celebrate “our values,” they are often celebrating an illusion.

This does not mean there is nothing worth preserving in Canada. There is beauty in its landscapes, richness in its diversity, and potential in its institutions. But potential is not achievement, and celebration is not owed—it is earned. A nation that has yet to fully acknowledge, let alone repair, the harms it has inflicted on Indigenous peoples has not earned the right to uncritical celebration.

Canada Day, then, should not be a day of simple celebration. It should be a day of reckoning. A day to ask, what does it mean to celebrate a country whose birth was a catastrophe for the peoples who already lived here? What does it mean to wave a flag that has flown over residential schools, police raids, and courtrooms where Indigenous rights are denied? What does it mean to celebrate a society that erased the original nations of this land?

On Wednesday, millions of Canadians will celebrate Canada Day. But if they do so without confronting the genocidal and white supremacist foundations of this country, they are not celebrating a mature democracy—they are participating in a collective act of denial. The question is not whether Canada can be celebrated. The question is whether it has done the work necessary to deserve celebration.

Until Canada fully acknowledges its genocidal past and present, and commits to dismantling the structures that sustain colonial violence, Canada Day should be less about fireworks and more about reflection. Less about pride and more about responsibility. Less about what Canada imagines itself to be and more about what it has actually done.

Only then—if ever—will Canada Day be something more than a ritual that papers over injustice with celebration of the red and white maple leaf.

Part 2 will follow tomorrow.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

As Canada Day approaches should Canadians celebrate a nation complicit in Gaza’s genocide?

To celebrate Canada's birthday as usual would be to ignore the cries of Palestinian children, the destruction of an entire society, and the blood of the innocent that stains Canada’s moral fabric.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As Canada Day approaches, the question of whether this country deserves celebration becomes impossible to ignore. Those who speak out against Canada’s role in Israel’s genocide—whether Palestinian, Jewish, or otherwise—are routinely met with smears, professional retaliation, and accusations of being antisemitic simply for opposing state violence. The cost of dissent has grown steep, with pro-Palestinian supporters being harassed, doxed, vilified and fired from their jobs, revealing a political culture increasingly hostile to those who still express moral clarity. This climate is especially chilling for racialized Canadians, particularly Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, who have been villified by politicians and right‑wing commentators as threats to “Canadian values.” Their calls for justice are dismissed, their identities scrutinized, and their loyalties questioned. It is difficult to celebrate a nation that punishes those who demand accountability for mass atrocities.

This repression is not an aberration but part of a long and troubling continuity. Canada’s foundations rest on the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous people. Residential schools, the Indian Act, forced relocations, and systemic discrimination were not unfortunate side notes—they were central pillars of Canadian government policy. It was and is all part of an ugly history shaped by policies rooted in white supremacy, and sustained by institutions and systems built on racist foundations that continue to oppress and marginalize racialized communities across Canada.

The same colonial logic that justified the destruction of Indigenous societies at home now echoes in Canada’s support for the destruction of an Indigenous people abroad. The parallels are stark. A nation built on colonial violence and genocide now enables colonial violence and genocide in the Middle East. In such a context, the idea of celebrating Canada Day becomes morally troubling.

This also raises an unavoidable question. How can a nation claim pride in its commitment to human rights and international law while ignoring the human rights of Palestinians facing genocide, selling weapons to the perpetrators, and disregarding the very treaties it is obligated to uphold? The contradiction is too glaring to be papered over with fireworks and patriotic speeches.

Canada’s response to what is happening in Gaza—a place that has been described as a “concentration camp” by many respected human rights voices—cannot be dismissed as a foreign policy miscalculation. It reflects a deeper erosion of the values Canadians are told to celebrate on July 1st. The ideals of justice, equality, and compassion—values often wrapped in the symbolism of the maple leaf—ring hollow when that same symbol is implicated in the suffering of an entire people. Domestic achievements such as universal healthcare or multiculturalism cannot absolve a nation of its role in enabling mass atrocities. A country cannot claim moral leadership abroad while facilitating a genocide.

History offers no refuge from this reckoning. After the Holocaust, many Germans claimed that they did not know the extent of the horrors unfolding around them. Today, such claims would not be believed because the genocide in Gaza has been visible to the world every single day for almost a thousand days. The evidence of genocidal crimes committed by Israel is overwhelming, the suffering undeniable. Conservative estimates place the Palestinian death toll near 100,000, including tens of thousands of children. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble, entire family lines erased, and an entire society pushed to the edge of annihilation.

These atrocities have unfolded in real time, documented by journalists, human rights organizations, Palestinians themselves, and even Israeli soldiers. The world has watched the destruction livestreamed to their devices. And yet Canada—despite its constant declarations of commitment to human rights and international law—has chosen a path of political cowardice and moral abdication. It continues to sell weapons and support the state responsible for these crimes while offering only empty rhetoric about peace and restraint. In such a context, silence is not neutrality, it is complicity. And complicity should not be something to be celebrated on July 1st.

When this genocide ends—and it will end—there will be those eager to insist they opposed it from the beginning. But history will not be fooled. It will remember who spoke, who acted, and who chose complicity over conscience. The Canadian government’s continued arms sales to Israel, its refusal to impose broad sanctions, its failure to uphold its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention, and its unwillingness to back international legal efforts such as South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice—all of these decisions implicate this country and its leaders. And it also stains those who choose to celebrate Canada Day as though these realities do not exist.

As July 1st approaches, Canadians who believe in human rights face a profound moral dilemma. To celebrate as usual would be to ignore the cries of Palestinian children, the destruction of an entire society, and the blood of the innocent that stains Canada’s moral fabric. The threats facing Canada from Donald Trump pale in comparison to the ethical crisis unfolding within its own borders. A nation that enables genocide cannot credibly celebrate itself as a force for good.

However, there is beauty in Canada—its landscapes, its diversity, its potential for justice. But potential is not achievement, and celebration is not owed, it is earned. A nation complicit in genocide celebrating while that genocide continues is a perversity that should be called out. To mark Canada Day with pride under these circumstances would be to participate in a collective act of denial.

This July 1st should not be a day of fireworks and flag‑waving. It should be a day of reckoning—a moment to confront Canada’s role in Israel’s crimes, to demand an end to the policies that enable them, and to insist that this country finally honour the international conventions and laws it claims to uphold. Only then can Canada begin the long process of restoring its moral integrity. Only then can it aspire to be a nation worthy of pride.

Until that day arrives, Canada Day is not a day to celebrate. It is a reminder of the work that remains to be done to fulfill the potential of this nation.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

In the face of the ongoing Gaza Genocide we cannot break or be silent

We cannot allow ourselves to be numbed into despair, exhausted into silence, or lied to until the last Palestinian child has been murdered by a terrorist, genocidal regime.

 

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

To every person of conscience, to every soul still capable of outrage and hope—we have watched horrors unfold that history will never forgive. Since October 2023, Gaza has been subjected to a relentless campaign of annihilation. The numbers are staggering and merciless—tens of thousands murdered outright by the Israeli military, hundreds of thousands more dead from starvation, disease, and the deliberate destruction of every means of sustaining life. The bombs dropped on this tiny strip of land have exceeded—by more than six times—the destructive force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

The most documented genocide in history

What Israel is doing is not war. This is genocide as confirmed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, respected Jewish Holocaust scholars, and various international medical organizations.

This crime of crimes has been carried out with weapons and political cover supplied by the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Canada, and other nations which still dare to speak of upholding “international law” and “human rights” but do nothing uphold the ideals behind those terms. And the genocide continues—even now—despite every ceasefire announcement, every diplomatic phrase, every claim of restraint.

In all of this we see clearly who Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is—a man who has turned the attack of October 7 into a license for the permanent conquest and erasure of the Palestinian people. He speaks of “peace” while ordering extermination. He speaks of “security” while directing the systematic destruction of an entire people’s future—its homes, its hospitals, its schools, its history, its children, its future. Every lie he utters, every racist edict, every mass grave he creates, stains not only his name but the moral credibility of the state he leads carrying out these crimes in the name of the Jewish people.

Netanyahu’s actions will stain Jewish communities around the world for generations. When a state commits atrocities while claiming to act on behalf of an entire people, the world too often answers with the oldest and most dangerous reflex—collective blame. We have seen this movie before, and we must refuse to let it be written again.

The Palestinian people are not collateral damage, they are the target. Their only crime is existing. Their only demand is to live free on the land their ancestors tended for centuries—free from military occupation, free from apartheid walls, free from settler violence, free from the daily humiliation of having their very existence debated as a security threat.

In the face of all this we cannot allow ourselves to be numbed into despair. We cannot allow ourselves to be exhausted into silence. We cannot allow ourselves to be lied to until the last Palestinian child’s voice is extinguished.

The day of reckoning for the criminal perpetrators of the Gaza genocide is inevitable. Those who ordered, enabled, financed, and excused this genocide will one day face justice, the judgment of history and of humanity. And that day arrives faster when ordinary people refuse to look away and be complicit through their silence.

As human beings witnessing horrors we will never forget, we demand—loudly, unapologetically, and without compromise—that our governments:

• Use all political, diplomatic and military means at their disposal to stop Israel’s genocidal crimes; 
• Open all of Gaza’s borders to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave;
• Immediately and unconditionally call for the release of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli detention without charge or trial;
• Support the suspension and expulsion of Israel from the United Nations and all international institutions until it complies with international law;
• Impose a full military, economic, and trade embargo on Israel;
• Issue arrest warrants for all of Israel’s political and military leaders involved in implementing genocidal policies;
• Expel the Israeli ambassador and recall our own from Tel Aviv;
• Publicly and definitively reject the very flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism;
• Uphold and defend the rights of Palestinians to freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly;
• Require the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from all occupied Palestinian territories;
• Pursue accountability through international courts and under the concept of universal jurisdiction for every individual and every individual and institution responsible for crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza.

This is not a list of distant ideals. These are the minimum conditions of justice. Anything less is continued partnership in a crime against humanity.

The eyes of the world are watching those who have power to act. The future of an entire people—and the soul of the so-called “rules-based international order”—now depends on whether our leaders choose cowardice and political expediency or courage.

Do not wait for the perfect moment. Do not wait until the last house in Gaza is rubble and the last Palestinian child has been silenced.

It is our duty as beings who claim to be human to rise up, speak out, organize, disrupt, and demand until there is justice, safety and freedom for Palestinians.

We cannot bend or break. We cannot forget, and we will not forgive complicity.

Free Palestine—from the river to the sea—and from the river to the sea, justice will prevail.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.