10/01/2026
but not impressed with Liberal Party moving far right.
Charlottetown MP demoted over vote
Sean Casey removed as parliamentary secretary after support for NDP bill on arms exports
The Guardian (Charlottetown)1 Oct 2026 STU NEATBY
Charlottetown MP Sean Casey says he was removed from a parliamentary secretary role months after he voted, alongside 14 other Liberal MPS, for an NDP bill that would have clamped down on a loophole to existing restrictions on arms shipments to countries accused of human rights violations.
In March, Charlottetown MP Sean Casey says he was told by officials in the Prime Minister’s Office that a vote in favour of an NDP bill, which would have limited the export of Canadian arms to conflict zones like Israel or Sudan, would mean a demotion.
Casey voted for the NDP bill anyway, along with 14 other Liberal MPS. The bill was defeated.
On Sept. 25, the other shoe dropped. The Prime Minister’s Office announced Casey had been replaced in his role as parliamentary secretary to the minister of veterans affairs by Quebec MP Sophie Chatel.
Casey, who has been the Liberal MP since 2011, says the link between his demotion and his vote was made very clear to him by the party whip.
“The direct conversation I had with the whip on March 11 was that, if I voted against the government on that bill, that I would be relieved of my responsibilities,” Casey said. “To which I responded, ‘well, I guess you’ll have to fire me.’”
Casey said he voted for the NDP bill, against his own party, because of the advocacy of hundreds constituents in Charlottetown who were concerned about the brutality of the war in Gaza.
While he received many emails urging him to vote for the NDP bill, he received none urging him to vote against it.
“I had no reason to do anything except to give my word to the people who had been pressing this issue,” he said.
This is not the first time Casey has spoken publicly about the Gaza conflict. In 2023, early in the conflict, he
publicly joined 33 other MPS in calling for a ceasefire – well before the Trudeau government publicly supported an end to the conflict.
But Casey said this time was different. Since the 2015 election, he said the Liberal party had adopted a rule that individual members of Parliament were free to vote their conscience, so long as the matter was not a confidence motion or a promise in an election platform.
Up until March 11, Casey had been under the impression that this was still the case. His conversation with the party whip made it clear this was no longer the case.
“The only surprise is how long it took them to keep their word that they were going to relieve me my responsibilities,” Casey said.
Federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis made a stop in Charlottetown for a party event a few days after Casey’s removal from his parliamentary secretary post.
In a phone interview, Lewis said he reached out to Casey to tell him he appreciated his “principled stand.”
“I just don’t think politics should work like this,” Lewis told The Guardian.
Lewis said bill C-233, known as the “no more loopholes act” was brought forward by his party because the Liberal government had tried to “play both sides” on the issue of the Israel-gaza conflict.
“The Liberal government claims that there is an arms embargo on Israel. But we know, and independent research groups have revealed, many, many cases of weaponry or other military hardware, including mu*****ns, go through the United States and end up in Israel,” Lewis said.
Canada currently restricts direct exports of military equipment to Israel but export restrictions do not extend to the United States. Jenny Kwan, the Vancouver East MP who introduced the bill, said export to the U.S. allows weaponry to be then sent to conflict zones like Gaza or Sudan.
Kwan’s bill would have removed the U.S. exemption from Canada’s export control list and would have required end-use certificates to prevent Canadian parts from being used for human rights violations elsewhere in the world.
As of late September, the Gaza Ministry of Health says 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 2023. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has estimated the population of the Gaza Strip has shrunk by close to 11 per cent due to both killings and displacement.
The conflict began after an attack on Israeli territory led by the militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which resulted in the killing of more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 882 civilians. Since then, Israel’s overwhelming response has been deemed a genocide by many human rights groups, from Amnesty International to the Israeli group B’tselem.
“We’ve been calling from the start for a real, no loopholes, two-way arms embargo on Israel, a country that is committing massive human rights violations, including the crime of all crimes, the international crime of genocide,” Lewis said.
“(It) should be isolated and brought to account by the entire international community.”
For his part, Casey agreed with the consensus among human rights groups that the Israeli state’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.
Unlike Lewis, he said he did not have many other disagreements with the Carney government’s policy toward Israel and Gaz
“I am a Liberal. I believe in the values of the Liberal party. I believe in the leadership of Mark Carney. I think he is the right person at the right place at the right time, and we’re lucky to have him,” Casey said.
“Nothing that happened on March 11 or on Friday changes that one bit.”
