Hamas called the Oct. 7 massacre a path to statehood. Carney just proved them right

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“Kill Jews, get your own state.” That’s how senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad described the Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians in an interview on Oct. 24, 2023—justifying the violence and boasting that it would be repeated. The attack, carried out by Hamas terrorists who stormed into southern Israel, killed more than 1,200 people, including women and children.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is now offering Hamas that payoff. His decision to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN in September is not rooted in diplomacy or peacebuilding—it’s a politically timed distraction. Recognition would mean Canada formally supports Palestinian statehood at the United Nations—a symbolic but politically significant move that bypasses ongoing peace negotiations. By aligning Canada with a narrative celebrated by Hamas, Carney is jeopardizing Canada’s international credibility and using foreign policy to shield himself from criticism over his failure to secure a U.S.–Canada trade deal before the Aug. 1 deadline.

Carney presents his position as morally principled. In reality, it defies the will of Parliament, which has twice rejected unilateral recognition of Palestine.

On March 18, 2024, MPs debated an NDP motion calling for formal recognition. Marco Mendicino—Carney’s former chief of staff—voted against it. The Liberals amended the motion mid-debate, stripping recognition language and replacing it with calls for a negotiated peace and condemnation of settlements. The diluted version passed 204–117.

Then on Nov. 27, 2024, Liberal MP Shafqat Ali declared “it is time for Canada to recognize the state of Palestine.” But that motion had no legal weight. It was symbolic; an opinion, not a policy.

Yet Prime Minister Carney now pledges to do precisely what Parliament would not. Why?

Because he needs cover.

Carney failed to land the trade agreement he insisted only he could negotiate. Rather than accept the consequences, he manufactured a diplomatic diversion. When Trump warned that recognition would make an agreement “very hard,” Carney got the reaction he was counting on. He set the bait, and Trump took it.

This allows Carney to point fingers, cast blame and claim to be defending Canadian sovereignty against foreign pressure. It’s a bait-and-blame strategy dressed up as principle.

Domestically, it’s political gold. Carney gets to revive the story that got him elected: the technocrat standing tall against the “Orange Man.” But this time, he’s not just risking his reputation; he’s gambling with Canada’s economy.

If trade talks collapse, tariffs and barriers will follow on goods outside CUSMA, hammering industries across Canada that depend on U.S. access.. Carney may earn applause in Ottawa and the Laurentian elite, but Canadians across the country will pay the price.

Even on its own terms, Carney’s recognition plan fails the test of serious diplomacy. What would it actually accomplish?

It offers no enforcement, no reconciliation process, no Israeli–Palestinian guarantees. It does nothing to resolve conflict. Worse, it validates the Hamas narrative that terror yields results. It sends a message to extremists everywhere: violence works.

Hamas, designated a terrorist group by Canada, the United States and the European Union, made its intentions clear after the Oct. 7 attack—to provoke, destabilize and claim political victory through violence. Carney’s recognition plan plays straight into that goal.

Carney’s move is not diplomacy. It’s a stunt. It exploits the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike to stage a political escape act.

There may come a time when Canada can play a constructive role in recognizing a Palestinian state—one rooted in peace, mutual recognition and diplomacy. But doing so now, in direct contradiction of Parliament, as part of a domestic political strategy, is morally bankrupt.

It erodes Canadian sovereignty in the name of defending it. It weakens our economic position. And it emboldens the worst actors on the global stage by suggesting that mass murder and international blackmail work.

Canadians deserve leaders who act in the country’s interest, not those who trade away our credibility for applause lines and headlines. Carney is endorsing a terrorist strategy to protect his political skin. And in doing so, he puts our country at risk.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).