On Tuesday, in a stunning scene in the Canadian Parliament, the Liberal party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, suddenly reversed it position and voted with the Conservative party to eschew restoring diplomatic relations with Iran.
What made the move so stunning was that Trudeau had campaigned on restoring diplomatic relations with Iran. But let Anthony Furey of The Toronto Sun tell the tale:
Conservative Senators had previously brought forward similar legislation and it was defeated last month by Justin Trudeau-appointed Senators. So everyone figured they knew how Tuesday’s vote would go down: Conservatives in favour, Liberals mostly against. Even Speaker Geoff Regan must have thought this. Because after he’d finished tallying the “yeas” from the Conservative side he then called to register the “nay” votes, as if he assumed the “yeas” were done. Then there were rumblings. Regan realized that maybe there were a few more “yeas” kicking around on other benches and reopened the count. There were. And the first one to stand up was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself. Then the whole Liberal cabinet, followed by much of the caucus, stood up to vote in favour of the motion put forward by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis.
There are two significant parts to the motion that was passed: for the government to “abandon its current plan and immediately cease any and all negotiations or discussion with the Islamic Republic of Iran to restore diplomatic relations,” and to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which runs Iran’s economy, to Canada’s list of designated terrorist entities.