Carney government replacing Islamophobia and antisemitism envoys with advisory council

Posted on February 4, 2026 in Equality Debates

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TheStar.com – Politics/Federal
Feb. 4, 2026.    By Raisa Patel, Ottawa Bureau, and Mark Ramzy, Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney is scrapping Canada’s special envoy posts on Islamophobia and antisemitism — roles created under Justin Trudeau that Carney had pledged to keep — in favour of a new advisory council.

The council on “Rights, Equality and Inclusion” will be made up of Canadian academics, experts and community leaders “with a mission to foster social cohesion, rally Canadians around shared identity, combat racism and hate in all their forms, and help guide the efforts of the Government of Canada,” read a government news release issued Wednesday.

The news, first reported by the Star, comes as the Liberal government had been looking to fill the special envoy position on combating antisemitism and Holocaust remembrance after former representative Deborah Lyons retired in July, several months before her term was set to end.

Speaking to reporters following a Liberal caucus meeting, Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller suggested that both Islamophobia and antisemitism have become “quite polarized in part because of what we’ve seen in the war in Gaza.”

“I think we have to give the opportunity to people to be upset,” Miller said of the axed positions, noting that the move was not a “cost-saving operation.”

 “I think the focus here, though, is to make sure that we are focusing on the unity of the country, on the division that we know is there that’s been fuelled by a lot of things, and making sure that we have a group of experts that will focus precisely on trying to bring people together,” the minister said.

Amira Elghawaby, the government’s special representative on combating Islamophobia, told the Star Wednesday that her office had “considerably” advanced efforts to tackle Islamophobia over the past three years.

“We also have been doing so much work to fulfil the mandate in reframing narratives about Canadian Muslims and advising on policies and legislation that impacts their safety and well being, and there was much work left to do in the mandate,” Elghawaby said Wednesday morning. Her term was set to end next year.

Both positions were created by former prime minister Justin Trudeau. In its 2024 budget, the federal government earmarked $7.3 million over six years for each office, with $1.1 million ongoing.

It was not immediately clear on Wednesday whether members of the new council will be paid or what its budget would be.

During Carney’s 2025 Liberal leadership run, his team told the Star that the former central banker would retain both positions, and that “a Mark Carney-led government will always stand against hatred and discrimination in all its forms and remain committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful society.”

In 2024, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he believed the jobs were “useless” and accused Trudeau of creating more “bureaucracy” to respond to the country’s problems.

Lyons’s position was created in 2020 to help co-ordinate the governments efforts to fight antisemitism, and was first held by former justice minister Irwin Cotler.

In an interview with the Canadian Jewish News after she stepped down, Lyons said she faced “a lot of hate” following Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, and said “it was hard to get people to speak up” about rising antisemitism. She could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Elghawaby was appointed in 2023, after a national summit on Islamophobia was convened in 2021 following a deadly truck attack in London, Ont. in which four members of a Muslim family were killed while they were out for an evening walk.

In December, Miller defended Elghawaby, who he said had been facing an onslaught of hate online.

“The recent surge in hateful comments and threats toward Amira Elghawaby, the special representative on combating Islamophobia, are disgraceful and entirely unacceptable,” Miller wrote on social media. “Disagreement is legitimate, harmful or abusive conduct, including disinformation, is not.”

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said his party had wanted to see the roles axed and said Elghawaby had positioned herself as “propaganda” figure who was “anti-Quebec” and who opposed the province’s secularism agenda in a “very, very deplorable” way.

Blanchet and other Quebec officials condemned Elghawaby back in 2023 over a 2019 op-ed she had written with Bernie Farber, the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, that criticized the province’s secularism law that bans those who deliver public services from wearing religious symbols, including hijabs.

NDP MP and leadership contender Heather McPherson, meanwhile, questioned Carney’s decision at a time when Islamophobia and antisemitism are “surging.”

“Dismantling the envoy positions less than a year since Mark Carney promised to support them is a betrayal that sending a troubling signal to communities already under threat,” McPherson wrote on social media.

Last year, Elghawaby released a guide to addressing Islamophobia in Canada, a document she told the Star Wednesday was “the first of its kind of any government in the world.” Lyons’s office had also released resources on addressing antisemitism.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/carney-government-replacing-islamophobia-and-antisemitism-envoys-with-advisory-council/article_582e0664-6fd2-446f-902d-5247b9584134.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a03&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=0C810E7AE4E7C3CEB3816076F6F9881B&utm_campaign=pol_hl_30012

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