In the Aftermath

MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj explains why he resigned from his deputy foreign affairs critic position

Earlier this month, Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, New Democrat MP Peggy Nash, and Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani travelled to Lebanon on a fact-finding mission and met with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to discuss how Canada can contribute to the ceasefire process. Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro was also scheduled to go on the trip organized by the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, but pulled out. Statements made by the Canadian delegation in Lebanon, and those by Wrzesnewskyj in particular, were criticized heavily in the media.  Wrzesnewskyj spoke to New Pathway’s Olena Wawryshyn about the issue that led to his recent resignation from his role as Associate Critic for Foreign Affairs.

 NP:  Could you describe what you saw in Lebanon?

BW: In southern Lebanon, in village after village, buildings were in ruins. I saw the remnants of all kinds of weaponry being used on the people, including cluster bombs. It’s quite horrific.

Beirut is a sliver of coastline between the Mediterranean and the mountains. Land is very valuable so there are no houses and the apartment buildings are close to each other. In south Beirut there are over 140 buildings that have been reduced to rubble – that’s like all the apartment buildings [in] Etobicoke knocked down to their foundations. On TV screens you don’t really capture it.

You walk up to the rubble and you still catch the smell of human death, and in that rubble you see bits and pieces of peoples’ lives: shoes because they don’t get torn apart in explosions. You see bits of furniture, notebooks, bits of clothes and toys everywhere. A lot of families have four, five or six kids so there are a lot of toys.

In Canna there was a man who had a packet in his hands, and I asked the translator to ask him what he had. He took out a picture of his wife, a picture of his two daughters, a picture of his sons, who were all dead. He had nothing left. His house had been flattened. He was the only survivor of the bombing. There was a little boy with a dirty face, and I asked about that boy and he said he was the only one who had survived in his family.  He was about 10 or 11.

NP:  Did you also travel to Israel?

BW: I was supposed to go to Israel on September 5.  But I received an email from the Canada-Israel Committee uninviting me from their fact-finding mission. Hopefully, I will be able to travel [there] at a later date.

NP: People in the community are discussing this issue, and they might not have all the facts. There have been conflicting reports in the media.  Could you clarify what happened?

BW: Absolutely. I spent the rest of the day [after the opening ceremony at the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival] explaining to people. Most were extremely supportive: I’d say 19 out of 20, and not just Ukrainians. But it mirrors what I encountered in Vancouver. It’s surprising how supportive people were.

NP: What led to the furore?

BW: We were in southern Lebanon, and there were several vanloads of journalists with us.  So, it was obviously of media interest. We had a lot of interviews and got into discussions a few times about Hezbollah and terrorist lists.

When I got back to the hotel in Beirut I got a call from Nahlah Ayed from the CBC and the Toronto Star reporter and they asked if I had changed my position about Hezbollah being a terrorist organization and I said: “What? No. I thought I made that clear.” And they said so did they, but there was a rumour that I’m on tape saying Hezbollah should be taken off the list.  And I said, “No.  I think a list like that is an effective tool.  What is not helpful in a ceasefire is legislation that says you can’t talk. If you shackle yourself by saying that, what options do you leave on the table?  If it’s not dialogue, the only option then becomes war.  So I think we need to find the mechanisms to allow for discussion.”

I thought that was the end of it, and then a couple of hours later I got a call from the National Post from Canada saying that they have heard that I support Hezbollah being taken off the list, and I said, “No, not at all.”

Again, I thought I had clarified everything, but then the next day I started getting reports that it was all over the news in Canada that I was calling for Hezbollah to be taken off the list, which is completely erroneous. Liberal Research went through reams of my interviews. In one of those there’s a recording and it says, “do you agree they should be off the list” and I said, “yes I do.” I don’t remember the context of it.  They didn’t even have the name of who it was [that asked the question].  It seems that there was an intention [by the media] to portray it that way.

In an article in the Toronto Star I said that what’s happened in Lebanon is horrific. I said I do not support any forms of terror, whether it’s the terror of suicide bombing, the terror of rocket attacks into civilian areas or state terror, and war is the ultimate form of state terror. I got quoted on some pretty hard-hitting things but all the oxygen got sucked out of the debate onto one phrase, which even if I said it, was clearly not my intention. But, once it’s branded that way, it virtually becomes reality, which is unfortunate because that’s not what the debate should be about.

How did the ceasefire come about? Not out of thin air.  Somebody had to be talking to Hezbollah. How do you envision a continuation of the ceasefire? There has to be dialogue.

We (Canadians) have a tradition of diplomats who are able to talk to both sides in conflicts. We’ve got a reputation for patient diplomacy and so if there is an incident then it can get referenced to a negotiating team who would then sit down with the two sides to try to resolve the issue, and I think that could play a tremendous role in strengthening the ceasefire.

There are individual on both sides – you have people from Hezbollah saying they want to start launching rockets again and you have the Israeli Chief of Staff saying that they are going to start Phase Two of the operation – with that kind of heated rhetoric, you want to put processes in place that don’t allow any incident to spiral out of control like the incident that catalyzed this war in the first place.

In that context, we could play a significant role but we would need to change our legislation because it says that we can’t talk with one side. That is absolutely ludicrous in this set of circumstances where you have a ceasefire and want to build on it.

NP: Why did you resign as Associate Critic for Foreign Affairs?

BW: To take all the wind out of that debate [about the statement]. The real debate is what can we do to reinforce the ceasefire, what can we do to help with the humanitarian crisis, what can we do to help rebuild the country. Then we have to guarantee that this never happens in the future, and part of that entails looking at what happened this time and that’s a debate that many do not want because some horrific things took place that should have never had happened.

NP:  What kind of feedback have you had from your constituents?

BW: It’s been tremendous.  I was unsure of what the feedback would be, and obviously we won’t know until election time, but I’ve had delegations come in, calls and emails. The vast majority of people are quite supportive.

I will continue speaking on this issue. I would like to thank the Ukrainian community; the expressions of support have been tremendous, and I truly do appreciate it.