Controversy over Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, an exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg that opened on 27 June, has entered federal politics. Heritage minister Marc Miller told The Canadian Press on 29 June that the museum had made “an error” in its presentation, arguing that failing to identify Hamas as a terrorist organisation and not clearly stating the 2023 attack intended to kill Jews were failures in curation that should be rectified. Miller also suggested board members were not given a chance to see the exhibition before it opened.
Federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis rebuked the minister in a statement on social media on 30 June, calling Miller’s comments “unacceptable political interference” and urging him to “retract his comments, apologise and leave curating to the curators.”
“This is completely out of line,” Lewis wrote. “Minister Miller says, ‘It isn’t up to me to speak to, or insert myself in, the curation of any particular exhibit.’ And then he does exactly that.” He added that the comments were “a direct attack on the independence of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights […] exactly what the Museums Act is meant to prevent.”
Lewis also affirmed that “The story of the Nakba needs to be told,” describing it as a hard history to confront.
The museum’s director of public affairs, Rorie McLeod, responded that Miller’s office had shared its concern, disputed the minister’s characterisation of the exhibit text, and said the board had been briefed repeatedly on the exhibition’s development. Independent Jewish Voices’ Winnipeg chapter defended the exhibit, while competing petitions supporting and opposing it had each gathered more than 11,000 signatures.