MP Anthony Housefather to stay on with Liberals after period of 'serious reflection'

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather arrives for a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023.

MP Anthony Housefather will remain in the Liberal caucus despite his concerns over the party’s support for a motion on Palestinian statehood.

“The adoption of the motion and all the events that preceded it have angered me as much as they angered most of the Jewish Canadians that I have communicated with,” the Montreal MP said in a press release late Friday.

“But I also know that my core values remain Liberal ones and after serious reflection I believe my greatest value to Canadians is staying in caucus to advocate for the centrist classical Liberal Party that I believe in.”

Housefather said last month he needed to re-evaluate his place in the Liberal caucus after many of his fellow Liberal MPs supported the NDP motion, saying he believed “a line had been crossed.”

The NDP motion, tabled in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, originally called on the government to officially recognize Palestine as a state and to “suspend all trade in military goods and technology with Israel.”

Most Liberal MPs supported the motion after some last-minute amendments. The final wording urged the government to “work with international partners” to “pursue the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” and to work “towards the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution.”

The motion also was amended to call on the federal government to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel,” rather than suspend trade in military arms and technology.

Housefather, Ben Carr and Marco Mendicino were the only Liberal MPs to vote against the amended motion.

At the time, Housefather said the motion suggested “a false equivalency between the State of Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas.”

“Canada should be standing with Israel. Canada should be defending the right of Israel to fight back against a terrorist organization. We should not be passing motions that make a terrorist organization equivalent to a democratic state,” he said.

Nearly 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7 — most of them civilians — and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. More than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s military response since then, health officials in the territory say. Those figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, though Gaza officials say two-thirds of those killed are women and children.