(Ottawa) The Russian ambassador to Canada has (again) been summoned by Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, this time in the wake of the publication of a slew of tweets hostile to the LGBTQ+ community.
The summons of the Head of Mission from Moscow to Ottawa, Oleg V. Stepanov, was confirmed by the Minister’s Director of Communications, Maeva Proteau. The information was first relayed on Monday morning by the National Post.
Anti-LBGTQ+ messages have been peppering the embassy’s Twitter account since last Thursday, after Russian lawmakers passed amendments significantly expanding the scope of a law banning LGBTQ+ “propaganda”.
The first of the flood of tweets, which shows a rainbow flag with a prohibition sign, is capped with the following message: “Family is a man, a woman and children”.
He made several react, including Liberal ministers Randy Boissonnault and Pascale St-Onge, both from the LGBTQ+ community.
“Russian homophobic propaganda is not welcome here. The treatment of LGBTQ2+ people in Russia is a disgrace and an attack on fundamental human rights,” condemned Mr.me St-Onge in response to this tweet.
“When this tweet went out, I was attending an LGBTQ2I+ event where activists and leaders shared their experiences of protecting the fundamental right to equality. In Canada, you are free to be yourself and to love whoever you love,” denounced Mr. Boissonnault.
Far from retracting, the embassy instead added a layer of it, first by accusing “Canada and other states adhering to a neoliberal agenda of deliberately distorting reality by confusing the concepts of individual sexual preferences and of human rights”, last Friday.
The same day, we wanted to taunt Minister St-Onge by publishing a photograph of Nicolas II, the last Tsar of Russia, surrounded by his family above his reply: “Madam, with all due respect to your opinion , could you please reflect and explain how you came into this world? “.
The embassy then split into a string of tweets, one of which echoes former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s famous quote that the state’s place is not in the bedrooms of the nation.
The next day, Saturday, it was the turn of his colleague Boissonnault to taste it. The embassy this time drew on its religious roots by publishing the icon of Our Lady of Kazan in the hope of making its point.
“In Russia you are free to be yourself and to protect your children while they are minors from the imposition and imprint of aggressive propaganda,” it was written in response to the objections from the Alberta minister.
The Russian ambassador has been summoned at least three times since the start of the war in Ukraine more than nine months ago, for various reasons.
The Conservative Party, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada called for the expulsion of Ambassador Stepanov.
With Agence France-Presse