Canadian lawmaker removed from position after backing bill targeting arms exports to Israel - Middle East Eye
A Canadian Liberal Party lawmaker has said he was removed from his position as parliamentary secretary to the minister of veterans affairs after backing legislation aimed at regulating the country's arms exports to Israel.
Sean Casey, who represents Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island, told CBC News a Liberal whip warned him in March that supporting New Democratic Party lawmaker Jenny Kwan’s private member’s bill would mean his removal from the parliamentary secretary post.
The bill was reportedly meant to close a loophole that allows Canadian-made military equipment to be exported to another country and then end up in Israel.
Casey said he supported the measure because of concerns raised by voters in his riding, although the bill was defeated in the House of Commons.
Casey was the only one of the 15 Liberal MPs to vote for the bill, and the only one of them in a position as a parliamentary secretary.
He said he was told of his removal during a call from the prime minister’s office on Thursday and was replaced by Quebec MP Sophie Chatel a day later.
Kwan, who tabled the bill, said the episode was troubling and asked whether Liberal MPs were really free to vote as their constituents wanted.
“A Parliamentary Secretary should not have to choose between doing their job and following their conscience,” Kwan said in a statement on her website.
The government may oppose her bill, she added, but MPs “should not have to fear losing their parliamentary responsibilities simply for voting according to their conscience”.
The developments come as Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had driven Israel’s standing to an “unprecedented low”.
The newspaper, in an editorial, said Netanyahu has ignored years of warnings about damage to Israel’s strategic relationships.
“The damage continued with his ‘blatant interference in American politics in favor of [President Donald] Trump and the Republican Party,’” Haaretz wrote, adding that “Israel’s standing among Democrats [has] collapsed”.
Haaretz said the decline is no longer limited to Democrats, noting how Netanyahu’s government, along with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have brought Israel’s standing among Republicans to “a new nadir”.
The editorial listed the war on Iran, rising petrol prices, violence by extremist settlers and harm to Christian communities in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as contributing to criticism from some traditionally supportive Americans.
It also quoted recent US polling that it said showed a “sharp and unprecedented decline” in positive attitudes towards Israel, especially among younger Americans.
“No bombastic speech” by Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly could “paper over this bleak reality”, Haaretz wrote.
Israelis needed to understand the ramifications of the deterioration in Israel’s image for the future of relations with the United States, the paper warned.
