Carney made reforms a factor in recognizing Palestine: Here’s where they stand

In September 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada was officially recognizing the State of Palestine.

He told reporters at the time that recognition was “predicated on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reform.” He said he received that commitment in a letter from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and discussed it with him later in a phone call.

Canada’s Privy Council refuses to publish the letter, citing respect for international diplomatic relations.

Carney framed the reforms, and the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to meeting them, as his government’s reasons for proceeding with statehood recognition — but both supporters and critics of the move interpreted it as Ottawa imposing conditions on that recognition.

Here’s a look at the reforms Carney called for and where they stand today:

1) Governance

Carney said Abbas promised that the Palestinian Authority, or PA, would “fundamentally reform its governance.” He said Canada has made it clear that Hamas can play no role in the future state.

Feda Abdelhady, the Palestinian ambassador to Ottawa, said in an interview in August reforms are underway and are meant to boost democracy for Palestinians. But she said progress can only go so far while Palestinians still face constant violence.

“We could do the most incredible job of implementing reforms from textbooks and curriculum and everything else — but the occupation remains,” she said, pointing to Gazans’ daily struggle to survive without reliable access to food, shelter and water.

Her delegation shared with The Canadian Press a report the Palestinian finance ministry released in July which argues the PA has achieved 30 of 33 promised legal and social-system reforms — such as strengthening the rule of law and investment laws — over an 18-month period.

The report also said it will be impossible for the PA to fund social services or undertake more reforms due to Israeli economic policies such as withholding tax revenue collected on consumption and imports.

Since the October 2023 attacks by Hamas, Israel has cancelled thousands of permits for Palestinian workers, blocked roads used to export goods, and capped financial transfers.

2) Elections

Carney said the PA vowed “to hold general elections in 2026, in which Hamas can play no part.”

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Palestinians last voted in 2006, leaving Abbas’ Fatah party in charge of parts of the West Bank. Hamas seized control of Gaza during a brief civil war in 2007.

Last fall the PA said it could only hold elections a year after the war in Gaza ends completely — and only when ballots can be cast in the West Bank and East Jerusalem without Israel detaining political candidates.

The PA held one election in the Gaza city of Deir al-Balah in April.

3) Demilitarization

Carney said the PA pledged “to demilitarize the Palestinian state.”

Senior Canadian officials, briefing media in September 2025 about the statehood recognition, said that effort must include ending the PA’s payments to families of those imprisoned for killing Israelis.

They said it also must include education reform to ensure Palestinian students aren’t taught antisemitic messages.

In February 2025, Abbas vowed to halt the practice of paying stipends to the families of Palestinians held or killed in Israeli prisons, particularly those accused of violent attacks. That has meant shifting welfare payments to a single system — called Tamkeen — based on family needs, instead of using criteria that prioritize detainees.

Israel brands the previous policy “Pay for Slay” and insists it’s still happening. The PA says an independent audit, set for release later this year, found that the policy has been largely eliminated. The reform has been controversial in the West Bank, where some say the PA is abandoning people seen as freedom fighters.

The PA previously said demilitarization will require some security guarantee — such as foreign peacekeepers — against Israeli incursions.

4) Textbooks

An analysis by the Israeli firm Impact-SE of textbooks and teachers’ guides issued last September for schools run by the Palestinian Authority found the texts glorify violence.

The firm’s November 2025 report cites examples from the textbooks — such as one passage framing the 1972 murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics as legitimate resistance, and another featuring a photo of the dead body of four-month-old baby killed by Israeli shrapnel during the 2001 intifada.

“The Jewish Holocaust is entirely missing from the PA curriculum,” the think tank found.

Israeli textbooks have faced their own criticisms. A Hebrew University study in 2012 found the textbooks promote racism by excluding any portrayal of Arabs as peaceful, non-violent people. Both sides have published maps that ignore the existence of the other side.

What does Israel say?

The Israeli government has been loudly critical of Canada’s recognition of Palestine. Israeli Ambassador to Canada Iddo Moed said the PA is corrupt and not serious about living in peace alongside Israel.

“We see regression,” Moed said, noting the lack of concrete dates for elections.

“Palestinians really don’t live up to their commitments. There is no reason whatsoever to say that there is any kind of Israeli involvement. They have all the capability. Actually, they have all support from the international community to move forward with these reforms.”

How much does this matter?

Jeremy Wildeman, a University of Ottawa human rights researcher who has focused on Canadian policies in the Palestinian territories, said statehood recognition seems to be based on perpetually moving goalposts.

He said Canadian politicians should focus on Israel’s disproportionate power over Palestinians — and the historically high level of violence the Israeli military allows settlers to undertake — instead of PA reforms.

“If you really care, the first thing you do is help stabilize the situation so the Palestinian government could govern,” Wildeman said.

Heidi Matthews, a professor at York University’s Osgoode Law School, said Canada’s focus on reforms could be understood as an attempt to create facts on the ground supporting Palestinian self-governance. Carney’s announcement included funding to achieve reforms.

“One way of reading that would be not a demand or a condition, but a concrete recognition that being able to function as a state, as a criteria of statehood, actually requires meaningful support by third states here,” she said.

“That support can look like actively strengthening governmental institutions so that the State of Palestine can fully and effectively perform the activities of a government.”

Matthews said this would be a shift away from decades of “just tinkering with humanitarian assistance” and toward ending Israel’s occupation.

She said Canada has an obligation to make that shift under a July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice.

The ruling called on states “to put into effect modalities required to ensure an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory and the full realization of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”