Winnipeg Museum Exhibition Becomes Flashpoint in Canada’s Gaza Debate
A new exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights has pushed a long-running political argument into the museum gallery. Heritage Minister Marc Miller has been criticized after saying it was “regrettable” that “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present” did not identify Hamas as a terrorist organization or mention Jews killed in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. He also said he was surprised the museum board had not reviewed the exhibition before it opened, describing that as an “error in governance.”
The museum responded that Miller’s concerns would be addressed through its established content revision process. It also said it had been transparent with the board throughout the exhibition’s development and had referred to Hamas’ October 7 attack as terrorism on numerous occasions.
The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday and centers on the displacement and dispossession of approximately 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, after the partition of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. The show’s website says it examines “human rights violations related to the ongoing forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians” through personal stories from Palestinian Canadians, along with video testimonies, photography, visual art, and text.
The controversy has been building since late 2025, when the state-funded museum announced the exhibition. In May, an Israeli legal organization threatened litigation over what it described as the use of federal funds to politicize history and potentially fuel hostility against the Jewish community. On June 22, the museum’s sole Jewish trustee, Mark L. Berlin, resigned from the board. In an op-ed in The Hub, Berlin called the exhibition intellectually dishonest and argued that it would produce a one-sided reading of Israeli history, Zionism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Five days later, a pro-Israel demonstration gathered outside the museum.
Yet the exhibition has also drawn support from Jewish organizations. Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the Jewish Faculty Network, and the United Jewish People’s Order Canada published an open letter titled “Dear Museum, with Love,” praising the institution’s commitment to presenting Palestinian perspectives and continuing to tell the stories of marginalized communities.
Museum chief executive Isha Khan has defended the framing of the exhibition as a human rights project rather than a simple political binary. The dispute now places the museum at the center of a broader question facing cultural institutions worldwide: how to present histories of displacement, violence, and memory without surrendering either nuance or accountability.
