Carney Liberals axe special envoy roles on Islamophobia, antisemitism

Prime Minister Mark Carney's government announced on Wednesday that it is eliminating Canada’s special envoy positions focused on combating Islamophobia and antisemitism, replacing them with a single advisory body. Culture and Identity Minister Marc Miller said the two roles will be folded into a new “Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion."

“The Advisory Council will be comprised of prominent Canadians from academia, 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,” Miller said in a news release. No members of the council were immediately named, reports the Globe and Mail.

The decision comes despite Carney having pledged during his 2025 Liberal leadership campaign to retain both special envoy positions. At the time, his team said a Carney-led government would “always stand against hatred and discrimination in all its forms.”

Both roles were created under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The special envoy on antisemitism and Holocaust remembrance position was established in 2020 and was most recently held by Deborah Lyons, who retired in July before her term expired. The government had been preparing to appoint her replacement.

Lyons previously said she faced hostility following Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. In an interview after stepping down, she said it became increasingly difficult to persuade public figures to speak out against rising antisemitism.

The special representative on combating Islamophobia role was created in 2023 and is currently held by Amira Elghawaby, whose term was set to run until next year.  Elghawaby told the Toronto Star on Wednesday that her office had “considerably” advanced efforts to address Islamophobia over the past three years, adding that significant work remained unfinished. “We’ve been reframing narratives about Canadian Muslims and advising on policies and legislation that impact their safety and well-being,” she said.

Elghawaby’s appointment followed a national summit on Islamophobia convened after the 2021 truck attack in London, Ontario, that killed four members of a Muslim family. In December, Miller publicly defended Elghawaby after she faced what he described as a wave of online abuse.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized the envoy positions last year, calling them “useless” and accusing the Trudeau government of expanding bureaucracy rather than addressing core problems. In the 2024 federal budget, Ottawa allocated $7.3 million over six years to each office, with $1.1 million in ongoing funding.