Opinion: Human rights museum director should be fired

The current director of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), Isha Khan, told its board that it is not her “boss.” The Globe and Mail reported this in August, in its article on the controversy over the museum’s “Nakba” exhibit, drawing on interviews with five board members.

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The law is clear. And it is contrary to what Ms. Khan told the board about who is in charge.

Parliament decides who oversees the CMHR. Section 18(3) of the Museums Act holds the board “responsible for the fulfilment of the purposes and the management of the business, activities and affairs” of the museum. The director — Ms. Khan — is “responsible to the board,” and “under the direction of the board, has control and supervision of the work and staff of the museum.”

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Ms. Khan told the Globe that the director is not hired or fired by the board, but by the minister, to whom she reports.

Not so. By statute, the director is hired — and can be removed — by the board, in both cases with the approval of the cabinet. Board members are appointed — and can be removed — by the minister, again with the cabinet’s approval.

Both serve “during pleasure,” meaning they can be removed at any time within the term of their appointment. If the Interpretation Act is read alongside the museum act, as it must, then section 24(1) makes this explicit: the power to appoint someone “during pleasure” includes the power to “remove or suspend” them.

The law does not cast the board members as spectators. Parliament has, in Section 115 of the Financial Administration Act, squarely placed duties on the directors and officers of all Crown corporations — including the CMHR — to act in good faith in the best interests of the corporation, and to exercise care, diligence and skill. These are duties, not options.

The exhibit, “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present,” was developed with a Palestinian Content Advisory Network created by the museum’s staff, not the board. One member is Ramsey Zeid, president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba, who has written that Zionism is “a disease that must be destroyed.” Mr. Zeid told the Winnipeg Free Press in August that it is “not really” the trustees’ “job to approve or disapprove exhibits.” And that the job of the board is instead to job is to “make sure that the museum is operating and following their mandate, properly and legally.” Of course, the board cannot ensure the mandate of the CMHR is met without looking at actual processes and outcomes — and ordering corrective measures when warranted.

Board members knew, or should have known, that the advisory process was partisan and lacking in transparency, that mainstream Jewish organizations were denied meaningful consultation, and that a great deal of relevant scholarship was being ignored. They had advance notice from the museum’s own pre-opening description of what was coming. It was predictable that the exhibit would, contrary to the museum’s statutory mandate, distort history rather than enlarge the public’s understanding of it, and divide Canadians rather than foster mutual respect — which grows from an honest appreciation of historical reality, not from divisive propaganda.

Writing in these pages on Sept. 10, under the headline “‘Nakba’ exhibit is a direct assault on historical truths,” historian Jeffrey Herf explained what the exhibit leaves out and referred to its “propagandistic essence.” The misinformation multiplier for the physical exhibit is the museum’s social media propagation, including its so-called “resource guide” and a companion guide on how to talk to children about the conflict.

Ms. Khan told the Globe that the board was behind her — a majority voted down every motion to delay or restructure the display, and she says she had its confidence, otherwise, she would have paused. She also said that, throughout her tenure, the board was never shown the text or content of an exhibit before it opened.

Board members, including one of us, Mark Berlin, in fact asked to see the exhibit before it opened to the public. They were refused. The museum, when challenged, commissioned two academics it had handpicked to review it, yet, one of the two reviewers stated that she, like the board, was not permitted to view the exhibit.

Reading their assertions together, Ms. Khan and her defenders have constructed a hall of mirrors. She asserts that the board is not her “boss.” But the government cannot issue directives on the contents of exhibits. So, all the mirrors show the same face: the director can do whatever she wants.

The reality is that Section 27 of the Museums Act does restrain directives from the minister and cabinet on exhibits. It says nothing about the board, whose responsibility under Section 18(3) is untouched.

Nor does Section 27 touch the powers of appointment and removal: the board may remove the director with the approval of the cabinet, and the minister may remove board members, in each case with the cabinet’s approval. And it does not relieve the government of responsibility for ensuring proper and lawful governance, including using its powers of direction, appointment and dismissal.

People are entitled to different opinions about the Middle East. They are not, however, entitled to their own facts and their own laws.

Board members and the director serve, in the statute’s phrase, during pleasure. The government of Canada should no longer be pleased. On June 29, Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, told the Canadian Press that allegations the Board could not see the exhibit beforehand “would, to me, seem like an error in governance.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney said in June, announcing new measures against antisemitism, “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians.” He directed the council he announced that day to examine antisemitism across Canada’s shared public institutions — the CMHR is among them — and named as its chair the same minister who is responsible for this museum. Through its inaction, the CMHR is still feeding that failure rather than fostering the respect and understanding it exists to promote.

Miller, the government and Parliament must act now and decisively.

Ms. Khan says the museum already has several guidelines to ensure quality control on contemporary issues — guidelines that one of us, as a board member, was never shown. The Globe article reported that board members voted to have those guidelines distilled into a single document for their September meeting. The shuffling of internal papers by the same hands is not the reform that is urgently needed.

There must be a new board and a new director. The object of installing new leadership would not be punitive. It would be to restore an institution that is undermining its statutory mission and thereby causing serious harm.

National Post

Mark L. Berlin is a professor of practice at McGill University. He was a board member of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights until he resigned in June 2026 over the failures of the Nakba exhibit.

Bryan Schwartz is a professor of law and co-author, with Rhonda Spivak, of The Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Its “Nakba” Exhibit: Bias and Animus in Process and Outcome.

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