Selina Robinson, Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future, speaks at an announcement in Vancouver, on Thursday, July 20, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns
VANCOUVER – British Columbia’s Post-Secondary Education Minister Selina Robinson is stepping down over her remarks that modern Israel was founded on “a crappy piece of land,” after her repeated apologies failed to quell the outcry from pro-Palestinian groups and others.
Premier David Eby said Robinson’s “belittling” remarks were incompatible with her remaining in cabinet, although she will stay in the NDP caucus.
“The depth of the work that Minister Robinson needs to do, in order to address the harms that she’s caused, is significant,” Eby told an impromptu news conference in Vancouver on Monday.
Eby had faced mounting calls for the removal of Robinson since the remarks last week that infuriated critics who called them racist and Islamophobic.
The premier said he and Robinson both agreed on her decision to quit, which came after two apologies from her, as well as a commitment that she would undertake anti-Islamophobia training.
“When you hurt somebody, you need to reach out to them and try to figure out what the best way is to reduce the harm and address the hurt that has been caused,” said Eby.
He said he and Robinson had been asking people “how to make things better,” and the decision Robinson had to go came after a “cumulative” process.
Robinson, who is one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in B.C., said in a statement she agreed her departure was for the best.
“This decision does not excuse my harmful comments, nor does it absolve me of the work I am committed to doing,” she said.
Robinson said she remained committed to her constituents, although she previously said she wasn’t running for re-election this year.
She made the original contentious remarks on Jan. 30 during a panel discussion with other Jewish politicians hosted by B’nai Brith Canada, in which she lamented a lack of knowledge by younger people about the foundation of modern Israel.
“They don’t understand it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. There were several hundred thousand people but other than that it didn’t produce an economy,” she said.
The remarks triggered a backlash from pro-Palestinian groups as well as from Robinson’s own party.
Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called them “offensive,” while the National Council of Canadian Muslims called them “horrendous.”
Representatives from more than a dozen B.C. mosques and Islamic associations wrote to Eby over the weekend calling for Robinson’s removal and banning NDP MLAs and candidates in the October provincial election from their sacred spaces until action was taken against her.
The announcement that Robinson was out came just a few hours after her second apology in five days.
“I am very sorry. I bear full responsibility,” said Robinson in the apology. “My words were inappropriate, wrong, and I now understand how they have contributed to Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism.”
But her critics were unsatisfied.
Dozens of protesters soon gathered outside an NDP caucus retreat in Surrey, B.C., where they tried to deliver a petition they said had 11,000 signatures calling for Robinson to be removed as a minister.
The protesters carrying signs saying “Selina must go” made their way into the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel before leaving the petition and documents about Palestinian history outside a meeting room.
Coquitlam resident Ramona Chu was at the Surrey protest.
She said Robinson’s original remarks made her feel sick, and that her apologies had felt “quite hollow.”
“It was framing that she made one mistake. But this is not one mistake. This is a pattern. It’s obviously a mindset,” Chu said of Robinson.
“I think, first of all, she needs to step down and give up her position of power and then she has to educate herself on colonialism. She needs to educate herself more about what’s going on in Palestine.”
Protester Jada-Gabrielle Pape, who said she was from the wu’Was’Ulwat’, Snuneymuxw and Saanich Nations, said Robinson’s comments were “egregious.”
“It’s hurtful to me as an Indigenous person to hear somebody speak of the land, to speak of the relatives that way. It violently dismisses the ongoing occupation and genocide for the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Pape.
Eby paid tribute to Robinson, calling her an “exceptional politician.”
The MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville east of Vancouver is a former minister of finance, municipal affairs and housing, and citizens’ services.
“She’s a representative of not just her own constituency, but of Jewish British Columbians and has absolutely done a ton of work with that community and more broadly, she’s a champion of the LGBTQ community and has stood up against bullies and spoken out for really vulnerable people,” said Eby.
“And she screwed up, she made a really significant error and so we need to address the harm that was caused by that.”
– With files from Nono Shen in Surrey
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2024.
