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QUEBEC — Quebec’s diplomatic representative should settle in Israel for good in the coming months, International Relations Minister Martine Biron said Wednesday, as the conflict continues to rage in the Gaza Strip.
Last fall, she said that she wanted to wait until peace returned before the Quebec office was fully functional. But in a parliamentary committee hearing on Wednesday morning, she said “things have settled down” and that “the economy has recovered.”
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“Doesn’t prudence require Quebec to freeze the deployment of the office in Israel?” asked PQ MNA Pascal Paradis.
“There is enormous potential” in Israel in terms of trade, Biron argued, adding: “our interests in Israel are economic, we are not in Israel for political reasons.”
Québec solidaire MNA Guillaume Cliche-Rivard said Israel faces serious accusations.
He wanted to know if there were “red lines” that should not be crossed to judge whether a country can host a diplomatic representation from Quebec: for example, Syria, which bombarded its population with sarin gas, would it have been able to accommodate a Quebec Office?
“In a context where a country is targeted by the International Court of Justice as being plausibly committing … a risk of genocide, yes or no, should Quebec maintain the openness of its office?
“It’s plausible, but it’s not clear-cut and it’s not a fact,” Biron replied.
The CAQ government has been mired in an imbroglio since the announcement in August of the opening of a Quebec office in Tel Aviv, just before the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.
The official opening had to be delayed until Sept. 18. Then chief delegate started by working from Montreal, carried out a one-month mission in February-March.
On Wednesday, the minister suggested that the delegate would return to Israel this spring, but should settle there next summer.
“If it is possible, this summer, he would settle permanently, obviously security is an issue,” she said in a press scrum after her hearing.
The Quebec office is inside the Canadian Embassy, therefore in a secure environment, said the minister.
“As long as the Canadian Embassy is operational, I think he can settle in.”
Paradis argued that the deployment of the office should be suspended, “while the armed conflict rages and there are tens of thousands of civilian victims.”
He wondered how the minister could plan “a deployment date on the ground” in such a context.
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