OTTAWA — Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has proposed to debate the turmoil in the Middle East on Monday evening.
Steven MacKinnon, who is also transport minister, says in a Sunday post on X the government has proposed to Opposition parties in the House of Commons that a debate on the hostilities in Iran and the impact for Canadians abroad be held.
Media representatives for the NDP and Conservative parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday, and Carney’s office didn’t respond when asked if the prime minister would attend the debate.
MacKinnon’s post comes after some of Carney’s caucus members publicly said last week that they felt uneasy when the prime minister expressed support for the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28.
Last week, Interim NDP Leader Don Davies called the Liberal government’s position on the attack unprincipled, incoherent and contradictory in a social media post.
During a news conference in Australia days after the attack, Carney added the airstrikes likely violate international law and he expressed his support for the mission with “regret.”
The Middle East has been in turmoil since the attack and, on Sunday, Iranian state TV announced Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the country’s late supreme leader who was killed in the February attack, has been named his successor.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2026.
— With files from Dylan Robertson
The Canadian Press
