Jon Liedtke joins 610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis for his regular weekly segment, Liedtke’s Got a Take!
Jon Liedtke argues that Prime Minister Carney’s foreign policy is failing after prematurely recognizing Palestinian statehood based on broken promises from Mahmoud Abbas. With delayed elections, ongoing “pay-for-slay” programs, and Hamas exploiting loopholes, Canada surrendered its diplomatic leverage for worthless paper while taxpayers continue funding the regime.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
Gene Valaitis: Every Tuesday morning at this time, it is time for Liedtke’s Got a Take with Jon Liedtke. Good morning, Jon.
Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Well, it’s report card time. A year ago, you wrote a column warning everyone that Prime Minister Carney’s Palestinian statehood plan was a complete charade built on hollow promises. Well, today you’re taking a victory lap, and why is that?
Jon Liedtke: Well, Gene, I hate to say I told you so, but, I mean, I told you so. I’ll take the victory lap over Canadian foreign policy—it’s been a disaster, and the receipts don’t lie. I called out this recognition of Palestine as a performative charade, as you said. Prime Minister Carney traded away our absolute highest diplomatic leverage up front for a worthless promise on a worthless piece of paper, betting the house on the word of an autocrat who hasn’t held elections in 20 years, expecting democratic miracles. But predictably, every one of the preconditions that the government set has blown up, and we can talk about those in a second. But first, I just want to stress how bad this is for Canadian foreign policy to be bested by a disputed country governed by terrorists. But this is a country, Canada, and a government that has been thanked publicly by Hamas, a terrorist organization, not once, not twice, but three times. A government that cut its antisemitism envoy for an all-faith group which has someone on it who formerly supported a terrorist organization. They stayed silent on a synagogue shooting, and which, even inadvertently, they ended up funding arts content, this government, that celebrated the depravity that was October the 7th. So, I mean, it’s absolutely vile, but it’s not surprising that this all fell apart like a house of cards.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Well, Carney, if I remember correctly, swore up and down to Canadians that this recognition was strictly predicated on the Palestinian Authority reforming its governance, holding general elections—specifically where Hamas did not play any part—demilitarizing. I mean, we could go on and on and on and on. So, bring out the receipts. What actually happened, Jon?
Jon Liedtke: Well, I’ve got the receipts, and there’s three of them, and they are damning, Gene. First, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas just issued a decree last week pushing those promised 2026 elections to next year, ironically on September 11th. Governance by perpetual deferral is a dictatorship’s favorite tool, quite frankly. Second receipt: Carney swore that Hamas would play no role in these elections. Instead, they are publicly welcoming this election delay, and there are reports that they are going to be running candidates as independent through proxy lists as candidates to slip right into power through the back or side door—total institutional failure. And the third receipt: the US State Department has recently confirmed that the Palestinian Authority paid out $156 million in pay-for-slay stipends last year. That is money paid to the family of terrorists who kill Jews. It’s a pay-for-slay program. They said they’d get rid of it, but they didn’t end the program; they just deployed linguistic gymnastics, rebranded it, and then, you know, they have re-implemented it. It’s tragic.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah, yikes is right. Now, listen, I think Carney traded away our biggest diplomatic chip—official statehood—based on a promise. And I mean, that was big. Now, I’m trying to remember, didn’t he claim that he had a signed letter from Abbas guaranteeing all these reforms?
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, he sold us, Gene, on these direct commitments from Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in a secret letter. But the moment that the journalist asked the Privy Council’s Office to see that letter, it was locked away behind bureaucratic secrecy. I mean, Mehdi Marotti, who is an Iranian-Canadian journalist who writes about Canada’s national security, he did a piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and he nailed it. He said, “A promise is not a premise. A premise is a solid foundation. A promise, it’s just hot air from a regime trying to secure something.” I mean, heck, even former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler explicitly warned that recognizing a state without strict enforcement mechanisms would actively decrease the chances of peace. Carney fell for the dictator playbook, which is dodge, delay, and deflect. And Canada and other Western governments that went along with this look like absolute dupes.
Gene Valaitis: Well, we weren’t the only ones to recognize them back in September 2025. France did, the UK did. So are we all rolling over and playing dead on these broken promises the same way Canada is? I mean, nobody’s saying anything publicly about this. I mean, you and I are the only ones talking about it today.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, you’d think that Ottawa would have found a backbone, but instead last week they doubled down, providing $100 million more of our tax money to supposedly train West Bank police in the Palestinian Authority. I don’t know. It’s just wild that we’re rewarding broken promises. And in fact, I actually just got back from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s scrum in Windsor at the riverfront. He’s heading over to Detroit to talk about tariffs. But he told me directly on the record when I asked him about this very issue of Palestinian statehood, and he said a Conservative government would not give aid to a regime that breaks its promises. He said it’s ridiculous to send our tax dollars to a dictatorial regime on the central conditions for statehood because, quite frankly, Gene, if someone violates a contract, you don’t reward them with prizes. But at least the French have said something a little bit. The French Foreign Minister did say that this was the worst disservice to the Palestinian people, and they put out a Foreign Ministry statement saying that, oh, we’re a little upset and we might have to pull back some of our aid. Meanwhile, though, the United Kingdom and Canada, we haven’t heard anything about this, and quite frankly, I mean, our government is acting like three monkeys right now with see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And Canadians deserve better, Palestinians deserve better, and everyone in the region deserves better, quite frankly.
Gene Valaitis: So do we cut them off?
Jon Liedtke: I say so, yeah. Cut them off until they, you know, abide by the preconditions that they agreed to, quite frankly. I mean, listen, we can keep delaying things and obfuscating things, but the fact of the matter is, and the problem is, is we gave away our leverage with this situation. We recognized them. What are we going to do now, take away the recognition? That doesn’t happen in the modern world, and that’s why, you know, Jewish organizations and people who are concerned about this file were screaming when this was happening, going, “Don’t do this right now. You’re literally rewarding the actions of October the 7th.” But we were told, “No, no, no, that’s not the case; there will be preconditions, it won’t just happen overnight.” Well, it happened overnight, the preconditions have been violated, and we’re left here standing going, “I told you so.”
Gene Valaitis: Hmm. Okay, bottom line, Liedtke’s Got a Take. Where does this failure leave Canadian foreign policy on the world stage as of right now today?
Jon Liedtke: Currently right now, Canadian foreign policy on the world stage is completely irrelevant, Gene. We are playing minor league foreign policy in a major league world. You can’t build credible statecraft on unverified promises from non-democratic regimes. PM Carney surrendered our most valuable diplomatic chip, granting that statehood, for a fleeting PR headline domestically, only to be made to look the fool internationally. And in the process, he stripped Canadians of any actual leverage to shape the Middle East and actively exported social division and Jew hatred right onto our Canadian streets here at home. So now, instead of showing an ounce of principled leadership and admitting that the strategy has failed completely, Ottawa has thrown another $100 million of our taxpayer money at the UN to paper over a total collapse of Canadian foreign policy. It’s depressing, it’s bleak, and it’s entirely this government.
Gene Valaitis: Liedtke’s Got a Take, and another good one today. We’ll talk to you later this week.
Jon Liedtke: Thank you, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: There he goes, Jon Liedtke.
This aired on 610 CKTB
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