EDITORIAL – Robinson’s exit a necessary cruelty in the business of politics
Selina Robinson. (Image: Govt of BC)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
POLITICS IS A CRUEL business. You can be in it for all the right reasons. Serve your constituents well for many years. Achieve positive changes.
And then you stumble. You say something you regret, and suddenly your political career is over.
First elected in 2013, Selina Robinson served as municipal affairs minister, minister of citizens’ services and finance minister. Even after David Eby demoted her from finance to minister of post-secondary education and future skills despite her having crafted a $5.7 billion budget surplus, she remained a star in his cabinet.
She worked on the mental health, addictions, public safety and environment files, and helped get funding to combat racism and discrimination. A Jew herself, she was instrumental in mandating Holocaust education in the school curriculum.
Only a few weeks ago, she was being praised for her condemnation of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Meanwhile, she went through two cancer diagnoses.
Then came the stumble. In an online panel discussion, she said Israel was founded on a “crappy piece of land with nothing on it.” The outrage was instant. She was accused of racism, colonialism, of insulting Palestinians.
She tried to explain that she was talking about the lack of natural resources in what is now Israel.
She apologized, twice, and unequivocally. Her remarks, she said, had caused pain and stress to the Palestinian community, the Muslim community and beyond.
“My words were inappropriate, wrong, and I now understand how they have contributed to Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism,” she said. She promised to do better.
She offered to take anti-Islamophobia training.
It wasn’t enough. Officially, she and Eby made the decision together for her to resign.
Regardless of the free pass given certain pro-Palestinians who have made much more outrageous statements, what she said was foolish, especially given the current political climate.
With an election coming, Eby had no choice. And the province has lost a good minister.
I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I believe the minister with an otherwise stellar record make an incredibly bad comment. Maybe more people should’ve came to her rescue because of her otherwise stellar record…or was her record not warranted such rescue?
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CFJC has run the story of her having received a death threat. It seems the sky is the limit on an issue that has been smouldering for a long time. The fact that a death threat has been issued drives home the logic that our municipal government was better off not taking an official stand on the conflict.
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Speaking of which, Bepple said she was regrouping to prep for another motion. Where is it? Or was that just the pretext for the climbdown, with no real intention to revisit the issue. They’re still shooting over there and dropping bombs. The longer council delays in bringing a motion forward, the longer this conflict will rage. They don’t want that on their conscience do they??? For shame!!
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But the outdoor skating rink is a go.
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Rather than having said a “crappy piece of land with nothing on it” and said something like not quality arable land which lacked resources of other nearby lands she’d likely by fine. I wish we’d have some back bone, she showed obvious contrition for he poor choice of words and she’s done a good job. I’d like to see some push back against the self righteous “woke culture”, the pendulum has swung far to far to the left.
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Normally I would agree with most instances of cancel culture, but she made that comment to a Jewish lobby group and is herself Jewish. I think she showed some pretty severe bias in the narrative she subscribes(d) to. It’s definitely unfortunate that one slip can mean your job, but I’m not convinced that was a slip. You don’t volunteer for Islamophobia training if you really meant arid farming conditions (which is true but didn’t preclude that area from producing a number of agricultural products). What did arid farming conditions have to do with why Jewish people were given that land to form a state on? I don’t think she’s a Islamophobe, but biased, certainly. And that’s no quality for an education minister. Ironically, she recently and personally intervened to get that pro-Palestinian Langara instructor fired for her comments. Little did she know a similar event was right around the corner for her.
This is politics. To Eby, it’s the votes and fundraising that are paramount, not principles.
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For the record, the Langara instructor was fired for praising the Hamas attack on civilians Oct. 7. Robinson criticized her but Eby says Robinson did not interfere. The instructor was rehired by Langara on condition she refrain from making statements that could be interpreted as celebrating violence against civilians. After she spoke at another rally, she was dismissed again.
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A correction is warranted and additional context:
She was suspended for her Oct. 7 comments, not fired for them. Was then reinstated after an investigation from the college, with the requisite to not make similar statements and was subsequently fired a few days later. This is where the controversy with Robinson arises.
The Federation of Post Secondary Educators is claiming the minister had viewed personal HR files on the matter, and she personally intervened in the dismissal. Knight was fired two days after the minister’s tweet on her reinstatement, which could arguably be an intervention in and of itself. In that tweet, the minister stated she met with Langara officials on the Knight issue. FPSE is helping Knight contest the firing.
Reading the minister’s tweet now in light of her own actions seems to have foreshadowed the outcome. The only real difference is the contrition displayed between the two parties. If one volunteers to take Islamophobia training as a result of the “deep hurt” she caused with her statements, does that not make her an Islamophobe?
David Eby’s comments can’t be taken at face value. He claimed the decision for Robinson to leave her position was mutual. Sources state that isn’t the case. Robinson was conspicuously absent when Eby made the announcement.
Political dismissal of a tenured professor will not be something the NDP will want to deal with if/when information comes out to corroborate that occurred.
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In the span of a week, David Eby’s NDP manages to offend Jews by calling the creation of Israel a sad moment for all Muslims, offended Muslims with an overtly racist comment that wiped clean the great history of a civilization and degraded the land and people of Palestine, then reoffended Jews by firing a Jewish minister which lead to shouts of a double standard.
Cancel culture is a creation of the left. But as they see, it’s more than happy to turn around and devour its owner.
In this climate, everything is an outrage, everything an offence, and every conflict is brought to our city halls and streets by special interests demanding Canada take action.
This is what happens when progressives push the notion of a post-national state that has no common shared identity or purpose. Just take a look around. There are more ways to separate and divide us through further labelling of everything, than there are ways to unite us. Is this the Canada we want?
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