MNA Khadir urges boycott of shoe store
‘In Quebec we have free enterprise,’ store owner declares after shop picketed
Quebec solidaire leader Amir Khadir made no apology yesterday for asking people to boycott a family-owned shoe store in his riding because it sells shoes made in Israel.
“Just because a business is in my riding, I am not going to abandon my principles,” Khadir, the National Assembly member for Mercier, said in a phone interview yesterday.
Khadir took part in a demonstration last Saturday in frontof LeMarcheuronSt. Denis St., handing out flyers and asking customers to boycott the shop until it stops selling Israeli-made shoes.
…The store’s owner Yves Archambault said he was “sickened” to learn his own MNA was picketing his store. “I was sickened to see him distributing flyers and stopping people who were coming into the store to tell them they shouldn’t support a business that sells Israeli products. In Quebec we have free enterprise, and as long as it is legal, nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot sell in my store,” he said.
He said he feels personally attacked by the picketers, and Khadir’s participation has made it worse.
…”Mr. Archambault doesn’t have to know everything, but when Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu say that Israel is practising apartheid, he has to take it seriously,” Khadir said.
Archambault said he has no intention of changing his product line.