Trudeau's U.N. rep boasts of anti-Israeli vote

 
 
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s U.N. ambassador Marc-André Blanchard yesterday boasted about his vote for a North Korean-sponsored resolution against Israel last week, tweeting that at last “Canada found its voice”:


The tweet by Blanchard, a political appointee of Justin Trudeau who served on his transition team following the 2015 election, sparked a firestorm of criticism from Canadians.
“No, Mr. Ambassador,” responded Hillel Neuer, the Canadian-born human rights lawyer who heads the non-governmental organization UN Watch, “when you voted on behalf of our country for an anti-Israeli UN resolution sponsored by NORTH KOREA and other dictatorships, you didn’t find Canada’s voice. You joined the jackals in order to win their votes in your campaign for a Security Council seat.”


Neuer pointed to the more than 10,000 Canadians who have already signed a petition protesting Trudeau’s sudden embrace of a one-sided resolution that Canada, including under his tenure, had opposed for years.
Because the resolution has to receive final approval in a second round of voting in December, the petition notes that there is still time for Trudeau to reverse his support for a text that rebukes Israel while giving a free pass to Palestinian incitement and terrorism by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority.


Others who blasted Blanchard’s statement include former Canadian foreign minister John Baird, MPs Peter Kent and Erin O’Toole, Senator Linda Frum, and NGO Monitor’s Becca Wertman, author of an op-ed on the controversial vote.


Baird pointed out that the vote change by Trudeau was not disclosed to voters prior to the recent election in Canada, and that Trudeau had voted for the same resolution for several years already.

UN Watch