The former Liberal member of parliament for Montreal, Yvon Charbonneau, has been appointed by Canadian prime minister Paul Martin become the country's ambassador to UNESCO, the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The decision has caused outrage by Canada's Jewish community. In the past, Charbonneau has repeatedly uttered anti-Semitic statements and taken an anti-Israel stance. Appointing a man of such intolerant, views cast a dark shadow on Canadian diplomacy, Harold Davis, president of B'nai Brith Canada, wrote in a letter to the prime minister. Last January, Mr. Charbonneau was quoted as saying that "on the Middle East question, I hope that Canada contributes in a more active fashion to the restoration rights of the Palestinian people, without which no hope of a lasting peace can be envisaged." In 1983, he caused an uproar when he urged people to place placards in schools attacking the "genocidal war of the Israeli government." Six years earlier, he had denounced Jewish leaders from Montreal by name, which earned him a rebuke by later-prime minister Brian Mulroney who called his rhetoric anti-Semitic and racist.