Whose Words Count? PCC’s Response to Minister Miller’s Comments on the CMHR Nakba Exhibition
July 27, 2026
On July 24, 2026, the Palestinian Canadian Congress wrote to the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, responding to his June 29 comments on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights exhibition Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present. The Minister described the exhibition as containing “words that are regrettable” and as reflecting an “error in curation.”
Our letter makes two requests of the Minister: that he publicly affirm the right of the Palestinian Canadian community to have our history and experiences represented at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and that he publicly recognize the importance of this exhibition to all Canadians. We have asked for a reply by August 10, 2026, and have requested a meeting with the Minister.
PCC is also one of more than 70 human rights, labour, faith, legal, and civil society organizations that have publicly defended the curatorial independence of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Where that joint statement speaks to the principle of curatorial independence, this letter speaks from the Palestinian Canadian perspective.
The full text of the letter follows.
Letter to the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture
July 24, 2026
Re: Canadian Museum for Human Rights Exhibition — Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present
Whose Words Count? Our response to your comments on the exhibition
Dear Minister Miller,
The Palestinian Canadian Congress writes to express its deep disappointment in your comments of June 29, 2026 concerning the exhibition Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which opened to the public on June 27, 2026 and runs until November 30, 2028. As reported by The Canadian Press, you described the exhibition as containing “words that are regrettable” and as reflecting an “error in curation” because it did not address Hamas in the way you would prefer. Those comments undermine the curatorial independence of a national museum. Equally troubling, they say nothing about why this exhibition matters to Palestinian Canadians.
We therefore ask you to do two things: to publicly affirm the right of the Palestinian Canadian community to have our history and experiences represented at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and to publicly recognize the importance of this exhibition to all Canadians. Our reasons follow.
The Palestinian Canadian Congress, together with community members across Canada, has worked since before the Canadian Museum for Human Rights opened in 2014 to see a dedicated, permanent exhibition on the Nakba. The Nakba is the term Palestinians use to describe the destruction of a way of life and the mass displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians within and beyond historic Palestine in 1947–1948. That displacement has been repeated in the decades since, becoming a source of intergenerational trauma and explaining why Palestinian Canadians understand the Nakba as ongoing. It is a foundational history that defines our collective identity, history, and experience. To deny the Nakba is to deny Palestinians our history and our place in public life — in effect, to deny our existence.
We are dismayed that, on the opening of an exhibition so central to Palestinian Canadians, you did not acknowledge its importance to our community or our place in the Canadian mosaic. Migration from Greater Syria — the region that includes historic Palestine — to Canada dates to the 1880s, and the first organized resettlement of Palestinian refugees took place in 1955. Official multiculturalism has been federal policy since 1971 and was enshrined in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988; yet this exhibition is among the first times the Nakba has been recognized in a national institution. Your silence on why that matters — on the fact that the exhibition humanizes Palestinian Canadians and treats our history as worth telling — reads as a failure to see us as full and equal Canadians, and it sits uneasily with the inclusive aspirations of that Act.
The exhibition is modest: brief, accessible text alongside photographs, examples of tatreez (Palestinian embroidery), poetry, and interactive narratives featuring the words and experiences of Nakba survivors and their descendants. Your comments are jarring and insensitive in light of those oral histories — Palestinian Canadian elders who recount painful experiences with patience and care. To suggest that their testimonies are part of an “error” is not only disrespectful but demeaning.
It is unclear why the words of Palestinian Canadians, sharing our own lives and experiences, should be treated as inaccurate in favour of words that others believe should appear instead. To characterize Palestinian Canadian oral history — presented following the museum’s own curatorial verification process — as an “error” implies that Palestinian Canadians cannot be trusted to tell our own history. On Canadian Multiculturalism Day 2026, you described Canada as “a living mosaic, shaped every day by the traditions, languages and stories that come from here and elsewhere.” Your comments on this exhibition suggest a mosaic meant for everyone but Palestinian Canadians.
We would also reframe the premise of your concern. The role of a public museum is not to impose a verdict on contested history, but to present human experiences with rigour and care and to trust visitors to examine them, think critically, and reach their own conclusions. That is the very mandate of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights — to help Canadians learn, reflect, and engage in respectful dialogue. Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present serves that mandate by centring the lived experiences of Palestinian Canadians and inviting visitors to consider them. To expect the exhibition to adopt a particular framing, rather than allowing Canadians to weigh the evidence and testimony for themselves, is to ask a public museum to direct conclusions rather than to invite understanding.
Palestinian Canadians have every right to see our human rights recognized, valued, and protected. We respectfully renew our two requests:
- That you publicly affirm the right of the Palestinian Canadian community to have our experiences represented at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights; and
- That you publicly recognize the importance of the exhibition Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present to all Canadians.
We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss these matters, and would appreciate a reply by August 10, 2026.
Yours sincerely,
James Kafieh
Vice President, Palestinian Canadian Congress
Visit the exhibition
Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present is on display in the Rights Today gallery at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg until November 30, 2028. We encourage all Canadians to visit the exhibition in a spirit of learning, reflection, and respectful dialogue. Exhibition details.
Support the museum’s curatorial independence
Add your name to the statement supporting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and its curatorial independence: Sign the petition to support the museum.
Media contact
James Kafieh, Vice President, Palestinian Canadian Congress
james.kafieh@palcancongress.ca
