Every time a crisis erupts in the Middle East, the Liberal government rushes to the microphones. Within hours of the latest escalation in Gaza, cabinet ministers were posting statements, giving interviews, and positioning Canada as a ready-made moral referee for the region.
But while Ottawa was busy issuing declarations about Palestine, another crisis — quieter, deadlier, and far less politically convenient — kept burning on the other side of the world: tens of thousands of Christians murdered across Nigeria by extremist groups, bandits, and sectarian militias over the last decade, with attacks continuing year after year.
And from the Liberal government?
Nothing.
Not a formal condemnation.
Not a dedicated statement.
Not a single high-profile speech calling it by its name.
Just silence.
This isn’t speculation. A search through public government communications shows no recent formal statement from the current Liberal administration condemning what many international observers describe as systematic or targeted attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the same government that can respond to Middle Eastern developments within hours can’t muster a sentence about tens of thousands of dead civilians elsewhere.
And ask yourself why.
The violence in Nigeria isn’t hidden. Christian NGOs, human-rights groups, and Nigerian bishops have been pleading for recognition for years. Opposition MPs have raised the issue. The U.S. State Department has repeatedly flagged Nigeria as an epicenter of religiously targeted killings. Journalists have documented entire villages wiped out, churches burned, and families slaughtered.
The scale is not in dispute.
But the framing is inconvenient.
If Ottawa condemns it outright, they risk acknowledging something they’ve been allergic to saying publicly: that Christians — not the geopolitical causes currently popular with campus activists or international NGOs — are being massacred in staggering numbers.
And it gets worse.
Nigerian officials often reject the “genocide” label, arguing the violence is complex: banditry, terrorism, herder-farmer disputes, and local conflicts that affect Muslims and Christians alike. That’s partly true — the situation is complex. But complexity has never stopped the Liberal government from issuing emotional, values-loaded statements anywhere else.
Canada doesn’t need perfect clarity to condemn suffering.
It just needs political will.
When it comes to Palestine, the government sees moral capital — an opportunity to align with global narratives, activist language, and international attention. When it comes to Christians in Nigeria, there’s no social-media chorus demanding action, no political payoff, and no easy slogans.
So the government stays quiet.
Harry’s take?
Silence is a decision.
A government that can speak instantly on some tragedies but stays mute on others isn’t practicing diplomacy — it’s practicing selective compassion.
Christians in Nigeria don’t need pity posts.
They need recognition.
If Canada truly believes in human rights, then every group facing mass violence deserves a voice. And if the government only speaks when the politics are fashionable, then let’s stop pretending this is about principles at all.
Because when fifty thousand people are dead and Ottawa can’t be bothered to notice, that tells you everything you need to know about whose suffering counts — and whose doesn’t.
