Catherine McKenna takes responsibility for tweet praising Syria

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says a tweet from her official departmental account praisingSyria for joining the Paris climate agreement was "completely unacceptable" and she takes responsibility.

"Canada Salutes Nicaragua and Syria for joining on to the Paris Agreement! Global #ClimateAction. #COP23," the tweet, since deleted, said.

Nicaragua and Syria were the final two countries to sign on to the climate accord, leaving the U.S. as the only United Nations-member state not supporting the agreement.

The tweet attracted dozens of complaints from Twitter users, many of them pointing tothe widely suspected use of chemical weapons by the regime of Syrian PresidentBasharal-Assad.

The celebratory Nicaragua and Syria tweet was sent from @ec_minister. Its description says it is run by Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

McKenna has a separatepersonal account.

"The tweet was completely unacceptable. It was from my departmental Twitter account. We took action right away as soon as we saw it. Look, I'm a human rights lawyer I know more than anyone that the murderous Assad regime and the actionsthat they're committing, theatrocities against their own people, are completely unacceptable," she said.

"I'm the minister, I take responsibility.

"I can assure everyone I will not be meeting with Syriaat the Bonn climate talks that I'm going to next week."

'Your public praise is misplaced'

McKenna's critics includedConservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt.

"Hey @ec_minister - this ... is actually what your gov't should be saying about Syria," a tweet from Raitt's account said, linking to a U.S. State Department tweet about chemical weapons use in Syria.

Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta's United Conservative Party, also weighed in, calling the 195-nation pact "empty virtue signalling."

On Wednesday, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheercalled the Syria tweet "unfortunate."

"I can understand how that kind of thing can happen. It's unfortunate. I don't think it reflects well on the department. Certainly not something I thinkCanadians want to see, government officialscongratulatingcountries led by dictators."