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Minister refuses to wade into rights museum's interactions with Palestinian representative
Marc Miller, federal minister for Canadian identity and culture, refused to weigh in on an evolving controversy surrounding the upcoming “Nakba” exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, under Conservative questioning in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon.
The exhibit, which is to be permanent at the Winnipeg museum, focuses on the experiences of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the creation of the state of Israel.
Conservative MP Michael Chong asked Miller about emails showing senior museum officials met with the Palestinian representative to Canada, Mona Abuamara, regarding the exhibit. The emails showed she attempted to get involved and was updated on its progress.
Miller declined to say whether such discussions were appropriate. Instead, he insisted that “it is not the place of the minister, or anyone in this house, to dictate museum policy, and what is curated, and what is not.”
Canada’s national museums operate as independent Crown corporations, under the jurisdiction of Miller’s department.
As previously reported by National Post , internal emails show that senior museum officials had a face-to-face discussion with Abuamara.
The visit stemmed from an email exchange in late 2024. On Dec. 5 of that year, Ramsey Zeid, the president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba who has been a member of the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the exhibit, emailed Matthew Cutler, the museum’s vice-president of exhibitions, as well as Isha Khan, the museum’s CEO.
Zeid said Abuamara would be visiting the museum on Dec. 11, 2024, for a tour and wished to meet with staff “to discuss” the exhibit.
Cutler responded: “Thanks for this invitation — we’re always glad to have the ambassador visit, and I know many of our team will be at the event on the 11th.”
He went on to say that he would “ensure (he or a senior colleague) is able to speak with Mona during her visit about our work around sharing Palestinian human rights stories through the museum, including the exhibit.”
This co-ordination arose amid repeated complaints from Jewish organizations about inadequate consultation and a lack of historical balance in the exhibit.
According to the United Nations , “Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic and “refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war … In November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab … The Arab world rejected the plan, arguing that it was unfair and violated the UN Charter.”
In response to the announcement of the exhibit, the vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Gustavo Zentner, said in a CIJA statement emailed to National Post at that time. in November 2025: “The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has rightly earned an international reputation for its rigorous consultation processes that bring together subject-matter experts, affected communities, and individuals with lived experience to fulfill its mandate to ‘contribute to the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians’.”
When the CIJA learned about the museum’s intention to profile the experiences of refugees from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it engaged with the Museum’s leadership, said Zentner. “We offered to convene leading experts to help ensure that any exhibit presents a balanced, fact-based, and comprehensive narrative, one that reflects the experiences of all refugees, including the more than 850,000 Jews forcibly displaced from long-established communities across the Middle East and North Africa.”
The Jewish community was not consulted, he added.
The exhibit was also the subject of criticism by one of the museum’s founders in late 2025.
Winnipeg lawyer, businessman and trustee at the Asper Foundation, David Asper, said: “The Museum has allowed itself to become the tool, or dupe, of only one side of the story and thereby betrays its duty as a national institution to provide a common and inclusive meeting and educational space on the matter of human rights.” His family led the museum’s founding in 2014.
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