Terry Newman
National Post, Oct. 10, 2024
““Thomas, have you seen the demographics of my riding”?”
An article by former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair this week suggested Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is shaping Canada’s foreign policy to please a few thousand voters in her own Montreal riding, particularly as it would pertain to Israel. “Thomas, have you seen the demographics of my riding”? Joly asked Mulcair.
While the defining feature of our parliamentary system is that MPs represent constituents, pandering to them in such a role as Joly holds becomes an obvious dereliction of a higher duty, and an act of moral cowardice.
Mulcair notes that it “can’t be debated” that Joly’s positions on the Israel-Hamas war have been “utterly incomprehensible.”
Incomprehensible is one way of putting it. Irresponsible is another.
Joly still has yet to correct a post on X from Oct. 17, 2023, that said, “Bombing a hospital is an unthinkable act, and there is no doubt that doing so is absolutely illegal,” even though not long after it was discovered that it was an errant rocket fired from Gaza, not Israel. What exactly is her excuse for failing to do so? It’s not like denizens of X haven’t pointed her to corrected news reports. … [To read the full article, click here]
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