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| Going.Going Gone Cabinet Minister Selina Robinson has been removed from he post in Advanced Education |
That didn't appear to the be the scenario to come on Friday when the Premier had stood by Ms. Robinson, to a fashion, noting how her comments on Palestine had been hurtful and disparaging.
The Premier however observing how with some remedial study on the issues of anti Islamophobia, that he felt Ms. Robinson still had a place around the cabinet table.
Events over the weekend however put that idea to rest, as Pro-Palestinian protesters and activists and many of their supporters joined forces to seek the ouster of the Cabinet Minister.
Such was the nature of the outrage that representatives from some BC mosques and Islamic associations had declared their facilities and houses of worship as off limits to any NDP MLA's or candidates for the election to come in October.
The cacophony of noise from the weekend sending a pretty clear warning to the Premier that the fallout likely would haunt him all the way to election day.
A cancelled fundraiser in Surrey, along with a cancelled housing announcement both highlighted concerns that the Minister's five words of "a crappy piece of land' delivered as part of an online panel discussion and then widely distributed through social media would soon become the only talking point for any NDP event, whether internal or external.
The Minister for Advanced Education has been the political lightning rod in recent weeks as she spoke in defence of Israel's right to respond to the October 7th attack, one of the few BC NDP members to actually speak to the issue of the current Middle East conflict and something which made her the subject of much attention from the Pro Palestinian collective.
Where her career ending moment appears to have arrived was through her participation in an online forum hosted by the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith on the History of the region pre 1948.
Her comment that the area was but a 'crappy piece of land' noted by the National Post as part of larger overview of how the region had evolved.
“They don’t understand that it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. You know, there were several hundred thousand people but other than that, it didn’t produce an economy. It couldn’t grow things it didn’t have anything on it, and that it was the folks that were displaced that came and had been living there for generations and together they worked hard and they had their own battles,”
A later attempt to qualify that comment through the prism of Indigenous relations in Canada also served to gain her commentary significant backlash.
With a Weekend to consider it all, the Premier announced her departure from Cabinet Monday afternoon, the decision said to be a shared one, her statement somewhat shorter than the Premiers, adding that she will not be seeking office in the next election period.
As the calls for her dismissal rose over the weekend, Ms Robinson was very much on her own island in the NDP caucus.
There was no sharing of support to be found from much of anyone in the NDP over the last four days.
Including that from her colleagues in the Northwest with both Nathan Cullen and Jennifer Rice taking a wide berth on the issue of the Middle East and any of the troubles that their party contemporary had found herself in.
Both likely aware that while commentary on Social media can boost your political career; as Ms. Robinson has discovered, the instant distribution of your commentary on social media can also bring a pretty swift end to it to as well.
As for Robinson's replacement as Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, the Government website advises that we watch this space.
The events of the weekend and Monday made for a significant amount of news coverage from the Legislature, some of the notes on the tempestuous four days can be reviewed below:
The fall from Monday's announcements likely will be part of the news cycle for a bit yet, you can find more on the events of the Legislature from our political blog D'Arcy McGee.
For items more related to Northwest issues follow our Legislature Archive page here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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