Canada to boycott Ahmadinejad’s UN speech over Israel comments

Canada to boycott Ahmadinejad’s UN speech

TORONTO — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada’s seat at the United Nations will be empty during a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because Ahmadinejad’s comments about denying the Holocaust are repugnant, disgraceful and unacceptable.

Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address to the UN in New York on Wednesday.

Harper said Wednesday there’s no way he’s going to permit any official of the government of Canada to be present and give any legitimacy to remarks by a leader like that.

As recently as last Friday, Ahmadinejad questioned whether the Holocaust was “a real event” and said it was used by Jews to trick the West into backing the creation of Israel. In a speech in Tehran, he said the Jewish state was created out of “a lie and a mythical claim.”