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OTTAWA—Ottawa City Council on Wednesday unanimously passed a motion to proclaim June 9 as Falun Dafa Day. What makes this noteworthy is that the councillors had to sidestep Mayor Larry O’Brien to approve what should have been a routine proclamation.
The original request, made in April, was for the city to declare May 13 Falun Dafa Day in Ottawa, which coincides with World Falun Dafa Day.
However, after the city’s protocol office informed the Ottawa Falun Dafa group that the mayor would proclaim the day, O’Brien refused to sign.
Both acting mayor Michel Bellemare—who temporarily replaced O’Brien while he faced bribery charges—as well as former mayor Bob Chiarelli had granted the proclamation in two previous years. O’Brien had also issued a proclamation himself in a previous year.
The mayor had recently returned from a trade mission to China where at least one deal with an Ottawa technology business was signed.
Although initially O’Brien did not explain why he wouldn’t sign the proclamation, he eventually stated that it was “in the interest of maintaining and developing a continuing stronger economic relation with a country that’s going to be important to our future,” according to the Ottawa Citizen.
Councillor
Alex Cullen told the Citizen that when he asked the mayor why he would not sign the proclamation, O’Brien answered, “I made a commitment.”
When councillors learned that O’Brien had refused to sign the proclamation, several expressed their surprise, and
Cullen stepped forward to table a motion to proclaim Falun Dafa Day.
“We’re talking about people who are residents here in the city of Ottawa who contribute to our community and I don’t understand why he [O’Brien] would change his mind,”
Cullen told The Epoch Times.
O’Brien was not present at the council meeting on Wednesday when councillors unanimously passed the motion.
