Liberals Say Tory Leaflets Suggest Grits Are Anti-Semitic, Demand Apology

Liberals are incensed that Conservative MPs have distributed taxpayer-funded pamphlets that suggest the Grits are anti-Semitic.

Even New Democrat and Bloc Quebecois MPs agree the latest propaganda represents a new low in the Tories’ increasingly partisan use of so-called ten per centers – mailings that each MP is entitled to send to voters outside his or her own riding.

But the Tories are refusing to apologize, maintaining the pamphlets are a strictly factual account of Liberal waffling on Israel, terrorism and the fight against anti-Semitism.

The pamphlets were mailed recently to households in at least five Liberal-held ridings with large Jewish populations – three in Quebec, one in Toronto and one in Winnipeg – under the names of several different Tory MPs, including junior cabinet minister Steven Fletcher.

They ask voters to choose which federal political leader “is on the right track to represent and defend the values of Canada’s Jewish community.”

And they compare Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s strong support for Israel to alleged waffling on the part of the Liberals.

They point out, for instance, that Harper’s Conservatives “led the world” in boycotting the second UN-sponsored conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, dubbed a “hate fest against Israel.”

By contrast, the previous Liberal government “willingly participated in (the) overtly anti-Semitic” first Durban conference in 2001.

Whereas Harper “strongly backed Israel’s right to self-defence against Hezbollah” during the bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff “accused Israel of committing war crimes.”

And whereas the Harper government “led the world” in halting funding to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, the leaflets say Liberals opposed the move and wanted Hezbollah delisted as a terrorist organization.

Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler called the leaflets a “shocking” and “scandalous” misrepresentation of Liberal positions.

“To intentionally misrepresent the facts and to drive a wedge and to seek to associate the Liberals somehow with fuelling anti-Semitic polices or being associated with terrorism, that, I have to say, is something that I have not seen (before),” said Cotler.

He said the previous Liberal government participated in the first Durban conference because Israel asked Canada to stay and “bear witness” to the anti-Semitic tirades by some delegations.

Moreover, he said it was a Liberal government that put Hamas and Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations, thereby making them ineligible for funding from any Canadian source.

As for Ignatieff, Cotler noted that the leader has apologized for accusing Israel of war crimes – a gaffe that enraged Jewish groups at the time and prompted Cotler’s own wife to renounce her Liberal membership.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney denied the Tories are accusing Liberals of being anti-Semitic. Rather, he said, the pamphlets simply present a factual account of the Liberal record on issues of interest to Canada’s Jewish community.

He scoffed at suggestions the Tories have sunk to a new low in partisan attacks. He maintained nothing Tories have said comes close to former Liberal cabinet minister Elinor Caplan’s charge that the Canadian Alliance – predecessor to the Conservative party – was full of “Holocaust-deniers, prominent bigots and racists.”

Kenney got some support from one of Canada’s most prominent Jewish organizations.

Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, said he doesn’t interpret the pamphlets as accusing the Liberals of anti-Semitism. Rather, he said they seem to accurately recount the fact that on several key issues, the Conservatives “were more in tune with the Jewish community” than the Liberals.

The leaflets targeting Jewish voters are only the latest in a barrage of Conservative ten per centers, most of which have been intensely partisan. A recent analysis by Montreal’s Le Devoir found Tory MPs have spent $6.3 million to paper ridings with the brochures.

Liberal MP Bob Rae said parliamentarians should reconsider whether such pamphlets – symptomatic of what he called “a new kind of gutter politics” – are the best use of taxpayers’ money. He favours banning MPs from sending mass mailings to voters outside their own ridings.

NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair also called for “an examination of conscience as to how much taxpayers’ money we’re spending on these very partisan attacks.”

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today