The Canadian War Museum's CEO has left his post less than two weeks after a Senate subcommittee asked the museum to change a controversial display.

Joe Geurts, who has headed the Ottawa museum for more than six years and oversaw the design and construction of the museum's new building on LeBreton flats, is no longer in charge, the museum confirmed Sunday.

The news comes the same month as a Senate subcommittee issued a report asking the museum to change a display panel on the Allied bombing of Germany during the Second World War after complaints from a veterans group.

Ottawa NDP MP Paul Dewar, who represents the riding where the museum is located, said the public needs to know why Geurts has left.

"I know there's been a controversy around the most recent display on the Bomber Command," he said. "We have to make sure that there's a balance between accountability …[and] some separation between the political opinions of any one group and the independence of the museum to carry out its mandate," he said.

Jack Granatstein, who sits on the board of trustees at the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corp., which oversees both the Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum, said he does not think the controversy around the Bomber Command exhibit would be responsible for the departure of Geurts, but it couldn't have helped him.

"It [the museum] is supposed to be independent, and I think that was deliberately done to ensure that the museum would be able to speak truth," said Granatstein, who was also the war museum's CEO in the late 1990s.

"I think that it's very unfortunate that we've got into a situation where veterans managed to get the 60 words in a text panel taken to a Senate committee and the Senate felt obliged to hold hearings and to issue a report on this. It's not the way it's supposed to happen."

The museum said it is searching for a new CEO, and Mark O'Neill, corporate secretary and director of strategic planning for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, will be acting as CEO until the position is filled.

Veterans complained that a panel at the war museum about the Allied bombing of Germany during the Second World War painted them as war criminals. The panel, titled, "Strategic Bombing: An Enduring Controversy" questions the morality and strategic value of the raids.

In March, the Royal Canadian Legion asked a Senate subcommittee to review the panel.

Earlier this month, the Senate subcommittee headed by Senator Joseph Day produced a report that ruled the panel had been misinterpreted, but should be changed anyway.

At the time, Geurts said he still thought the panel was accurate and sensitive, but would consider the report's findings.