‘With broken hearts, we must depart the Laurier Club,’ the group wrote in a letter to the party president.
By: Raffy Boudjikanian ·
A network representing influential Canadian Muslim donors to the Liberal Party of Canada has dropped out of the ranks of the party’s top donors, citing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s disinclination to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, CBC News has learned. In a formal letter sent to party president Sachit Mehra on November 27, the group — which calls itself the Network 100-GTA, London, Ottawa, Montreal and says it has 400 members — said it has called on Trudeau repeatedly to request a ceasefire.
“The Leader does not appear to be interested in truly listening, nor interested in giving true value to international Law, nor truly caring about the children of Gaza. With broken hearts, we must depart the Laurier Club,” the group wrote.
“The idea that this situation will all be forgotten in two years is an extremely risky and unwise strategy for the Party. The scale of the humanitarian loss is simply unprecedented.” The donor group is made up mostly of Canadian Muslim professionals, such as lawyers and doctors. Formed in December 2014, the group helped Justin Trudeau to his first election victory in 2015. The group says it has directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party annually since December 2014. One member of the group — whose donation records CBC News verified with Elections Canada — has contributed nearly $19,000 to the Liberals since the group’s foundation.
The Laurier Club is the upper tier of Liberal Party donors. The party’s website says that to be eligible for the club, members must donate at least $1,700 per year. Trudeau’s harshest criticism of Israel since its war with Hamas began came on November 14. He urged the country to use “maximum restraint.”
“The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop,” he told a news conference at the time. Trudeau also has said repeatedly that Israel has a right to defend itself after the attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people on October 7.
Since then, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said Israel has killed more than 17,000 people with its military response. It has not broken that estimate down into civilians and combatants; it claims most of those killed have been under 18. Public health experts have told the Reuters news agency Hamas kept accurate population numbers prior to this conflict.
Network members have spoken to Trudeau, Telford
Some members of the Network 100 have spoken directly to Trudeau and his chief of staff Katie Telford.
Other network members took part in a virtual meeting with Mehra on December 5.
One long-time party organizer and prominent Canadian Muslim told CBC News he told Mehra during the meeting that “the Liberals should not think that our community is going to forgive and forget.” The organizer spoke to CBC News on the condition they not be identified and said they had agreed not to publicize the contents of the closed-doors meeting…
Bad timing for the Liberals
The move by the Network 100 comes at a vulnerable moment for the Liberals, who have lost ground to the federal Conservatives in voting intention surveys for several months in a row. Most polls currently show the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre would win an election if one were to be held right now. Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, said the Liberals can’t afford to lose mass Muslim support in this context.
“It adds to the pressure. It adds to the continuum and particular mix of pressures,” she said. “The Muslim diaspora in Canada tends to lean more left than right and tends to have a higher level of support for the Liberal Party than the Conservative Party. But where the X factor exists is in the potential for the NDP to pick up or take back some support from the Liberals on this issue electorally…
“The prime minister is probably not making anybody as happy as they would like to be.”
Source: cbc.ca/news
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
