CANADA SUMMONS RUSSIAN ENVOY
Embassy’s rash of homophobic tweets draws ire
• The federal government will summon Russia’s ambassador to respond to widely criticized homophobic tweets by the Russian embassy in Canada made barely one week after a deadly shooting in an American LGBTQ bar.
A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly confirmed to National Post that the minister demanded on Saturday that the government take the extraordinary step to summon Russian ambassador Oleg Stepanov for a meeting.
“Unsurprisingly, the Russians have once again chosen hateful propaganda,” Joly’s deputy director of communications, Emily Williams, said in a statement.
“This is an attack on the Canadian values of acceptance and tolerance. Minister Joly has directed Global Affairs Canada to summon the Russian Ambassador to tell him as much.”
Since Thursday, Russia’s Canadian embassy has repeatedly and vociferously shared ANTI-LGBTQ propaganda on social media, going so far as telling federal minister Pascale St-onge, who is openly lesbian, to “explore and explain” how she “appeared in this world.”
That message was accompanied by an unexplained picture of the Romanov family that ruled over Russia until they were executed in 1918.
“Russian homophobic propaganda is not welcome here. The treatment of LGBTQ2+ people in Russia is a disgrace and an attack on basic human rights,” St-onge wrote to the embassy. Before that, the Russians tweeted a photo illustration of a pride flag with a “banned” symbol over it, alongside a message stating, “it is all about family. Family is a man and a woman and children.”
“We absolutely can’t tolerate this rhetoric and even less the subsequent comments on Minister St-onge’s response,” Williams said in a statement.
The Russian embassy’s account has since tweeted over a dozen additional ANTI-LGBTQ tweets and messages denouncing Canada and its allies’ “neoliberal agenda.” One even quoted former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s saying, “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”
“It would be very timely now to follow it up with an equally important comment: “there is no place for a bedroom in the Government,” the Russian embassy added.
The tweets began on the same day the Russian government took one more step toward passing a bill that prohibits the “praising” of “LGBTQ propaganda” to children.
The bill, which has been internationally criticized by LGBTQ advocates and Western countries, threatens to fine citizens or even deport foreign nationals who promote “the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” or even suggest they are “normal.”
The tweets, which also promote heterosexual family units, come barely one week after a horrific shooting at a Colorado gay club left five people dead amid rising concerns about ANTI-LGBTQ rhetoric, particularly in the United States.
The suspected shooter faces five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime and another five murder charges.
The Russian embassy’s statements sparked a maelstrom of criticism online both in Canada and abroad that has lasted for days.
Retired Canadian diplomat and senior intelligence agency executive Artur Wilczynski wrote, “Dear Russian Embassy in Canada, this is the #2SLGBTIA+ community in Canada. Go f *ck yourself.”
Garry Keller, once chief of staff to former Conservative foreign minister John Baird, also invited the Russians to copulate with themselves all the while denouncing how the country is “murdering, butchering and torturing Ukrainians in cold blood.”
On Saturday, the German embassy in Ottawa jumped into the fray, with its deputy head of mission, Karina Häusimeier, going so far as walking to the Russian ambassador’s residence with a baby carriage draped in a pride flag and taking a photo in front of the building.
“We will not stand for this! As a bisexual with a lesbian mom tweeting for Germany & a Deputy Head of Mission who came here with her wife + kids, we are personally making sure that Russia in Canada hears (and sees) the message: (LGBTQ) Families are Families, ((LGBTQ) Rights are Human Rights!,” reads the accompanying tweet from the German embassy’s official account.
Montreal city councillor Serge Sasseville, known for his daily ritual of blasting the Ukrainian anthem in front of the city’s Russian consulate, posted a photo of himself and supporters hanging a pride flag on the fence in front of the building Saturday.