Rights council seeks unity that Jewish, Muslim envoys couldn't achieve: Miller

Ottawa first created the role of a special envoy for combating antisemitism in 2020 and a similar position dealing with Islamophobia in 2023.

In February, the government announced it was scrapping both of those stand-alone federal envoy positions and replacing them with a new, broader “advisory council on rights, equality and inclusion” composed of prominent academics, experts and community leaders.

At the time, Prime Minister Mark Carney framed the measure as one aimed at addressing hatred of Muslims, Jews and Indigenous Peoples.

When he officially launched the council a month ago, the prime minister said it would investigate the causes of antisemitism and improve research and data collection on hate incidents.

Since then, the government has been hit with a torrent of criticism — particularly from Jewish advocacy groups who argue the causes of antisemitism are well understood and documented in parliamentary reports.

“If we are looking at the threats that our community is facing, it’s going to take a lot more than people sitting at a table and speaking to one another to stop bullets from flying through the windows of synagogues and schools,” said Noah Shack, head of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

His group and other large Jewish organizations have called on Canada to restore the antisemitism envoy role and reform it, to do more to prevent hate crimes and to call out groups affiliated with the Iranian government.

“When we have international actors directing attacks on Jewish community targets in Canada, and we have radicalized people in the spirit of the Islamic State plotting terror attacks similar to the one that occurred at Bondi Beach in Australia … these are issues that are not going to be solved by dialogue,” Shack said.

He said it’s “a noble endeavour” to seek common ground across communities but he worries the effort will distract the government from directly addressing the elevated threats Jews face.

“Really, what we need is concrete action right now to demonstrate that the government isn’t just convening to explore and study issues but is committed to solving them,” Shack said.

In a statement, the National Council of Canadian Muslims said it wants “a real plan to counter the rise in Islamophobic incidents across Canada” and says Muslims have worked before with other communities on addressing hate.

“Talking about the things the (Islamophobia envoy) office supposedly didn’t do ignores both its mandate and the positive work it did accomplish,” wrote National Council of Canadian Muslims spokesman Steven Zhou, adding the group will work with the advisory council.

Miller said his government is also pursuing anti-hate policies and legislation.

Parliament passed Bill C-9 last month, which creates new criminal offences for intimidating or obstructing someone outside a religious or cultural institution, and codifies a definition of hatred in criminal law.

Miller said the former envoys on Islamophobia and antisemitism, Amira Elghawaby and Deborah Lyons, both provided helpful guidance to the government. He said they were not to blame for the failure to significantly boost dialogue between Jews and Muslims in Canada.

“Perhaps (it’s) unfair to expect real improvement in very polarized groups in society … that largely are not speaking to each other,” Miller said.

“The work that those two (envoys) have done, we can build on. But the focus, I think — and I agree with the prime minister in this — was to make sure that we had a broader group … focused on national unity that, visibly, whether we like it or not, those two secretariats were not achieving.”

Lyons, the former antisemitism envoy, has said that Jewish and Muslims groups disapproved of attempts she and Elghawaby had made to work together on things like provincial school curriculums. Elghawaby has said she wasn’t aware of those sentiments in Muslim communities.

Shack said the mandate for the envoys didn’t appear to mention unifying communities.

“You can’t conflate these two things. Often we would see antisemitism and Islamophobia routinely mentioned in the same breath. I think each community is having its own experience,” he said.

Miller said Carney came up with the idea for the council and discussed it with him back in December, shortly after his appointment as heritage minister.

“We had a long conversation about the unity of the country … but also his concern with the state of polarization,” he said.

The idea behind the council is to have eminent people who are generally representative of Canada’s diversity who can encourage social cohesion, Miller said, because “that fabric has been torn” by multiple factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and events in the Middle East.

“This isn’t about trying to identify new forms of hate. It’s about looking at the ones that are already there — that in the case of antisemitism is one of the oldest, if not the oldest form of hatred — and look at the current drivers of it,” he said.

“You will find naysayers. We owe it to ourselves — and we owe to our country — to try.”

After Ottawa launched the council, it faced swift pushback from Black activists and Amnesty International officials who pointed out that none of the seven original appointees were Black. In late June the council added two new appointees, including a Catholic bishop and retired judge Corrine Sparks, who is descended from Black settlers in Nova Scotia.

The council held its first meeting in a hybrid format on Tuesday. Miller said Ottawa isn’t planning to add any more members.

“It’s set for the next little while. (We’re) not dogmatic about this and we will have to figure things out as they move along, but currently the nine-person format is set,” Miller said.

The council has come under attack from other quarters as well.

In a message posted to social media, Fae Johnstone, a prominent transgender activist, said the council should have “reflected the segment of the queer community under sustained attack, i.e., trans people.”

The council currently includes Martine Roy, a lesbian who helped lead a campaign to get Ottawa to apologize to those purged from the military or public service for homosexuality.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2026.