2006: The Beginning of the End of the Liberal Party?

Liberal Party still paying for its mistakes

In 2006, something happened to the Liberal Party that they had considered unthinkable:

They were defeated in an election.

That year, Stephen Harper led the Conservative Party to form a minority government. He has resided at 24 Sussex Drive ever since, much to the consternation of the Canaidan left.

The Liberals spent the time since blaming everyone but themselves. They blamed the NDP -- who have since supplanted them as the official opposition -- for competing against them. They blamed the RCMP for choosing to investigate the income trust leak, after Finance Minister Ralph Goodale flat-out refused to investigate on his own.

They never came to grips with what led them to that defeat in the first place, and they're still paying.

Looking back on 2006, it was hard to know precisely how bad it would be for the Liberals moving forward. But looking back -- and hindisght is always 50/50 -- there were some signs. The best sign was actually the individuals who offered themselves as candidates to replace Paul Martin.

The frontrunner candidates in 2006 were Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff. Stephane Dion eventually managed to emerge as the Liberal leader. Then there were the less-competitive also-rans.

Individuals like Joe Volpe, Ken Dryden, Martha-Hall Findlay, and Gerard Kennedy. What do these four have in common? They, along with Michael Ignatieff, lost their Parliamentary seats in the 2011 election. They also have in common outstanding debts -- nearly five years after the 2006 Liberal leadership convention -- from that campaign.

But the real story is the rout. Considering the position the Liberals were in circa 2006, each one of the leadership candidates who ran should have done so because they believed they could lead the Liberal Party back to power.

Five years later, five of these would-be Prime Ministers are out of Parliament, against their own wishes.

Was 2006 the beginning of the end of the Liberal Party? That chapter hasn't been written yet. Despite what the triumphalist cheerleaders of the NDP have declared, Canada is far better off with the Liberal Party than without it.

But in order for the Liberal Party to emerge intact, they must first learn from the mistakes that led to their 2006 defeat, and all the mistakes made since.

The best time -- perhaps the only time -- for them to do that is right now. If they don't 2006, really will have been the beginning of the end.

With Whom Would Gerard Kennedy Negotiate?

Kennedy allows his anti-Americanism to shine through

As Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy's bill to grant war resisters safe haven in Canada progresses closer to its second reading, Kennedy is suddenly speaking the language of compromise.

He says he's willing to compromise on the bill, which currently calls for Canada to become a safe haven for conscientious objectors anywhere in the world.

"It's not a requirement for me that that very broad principle now be ensconced in the Immigration and Refugee Act," Kennedy said.

No. Instead, he's more than willing to see his act reduced to making Canada a haven for American war resisters... and American war resisters alone.

Which should really remind Canadians of what this bill is really about: trying to solidify the Liberal Party's stance with voters of the far-left, for whom anything opposing US interests is a good thing -- even when shielding individuals who volunteered for military service, often after the contentious war in Iraq began.

Even Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff -- who is quickly embracing the role of say-anything Grit leader -- is getting in on the act.

"You don't let just anybody in," Ignatieff said. "They have to prove that they have a substantial objection of conscience to forced military service."

"The issue here -- and that's why we want to get it into committee -- is the issue of stop-loss, the issue of where you enlist and whether you're compelled to re-enlist," he explained.

If stop-loss has really been the issue, that would be news. After all, Kennedy's bill doesn't specifically state that it applies solely to stop-lossed servicepersons.

Nor is there any reason to think that Kennedy will consent to have his bill re-written to reflect that. It isn't a compromise that Kennedy has publicly offered. Moreover, the prospect of so-called "conscientious objectors" who haven't been stop-lossed being deported back to the US as they should be would undermine the bill's promise of cheap partisan gain.

But this is all really a moot point.

Perhaps Gerard Kennedy should be reaching out to the Barack Obama administration that the Liberal Party allegedly favours to find out what kind of a compromise he can work out with them.

There's little chance of that. But if Kennedy's bill were about anything other than cheap partisan gain, it's one of the first things he would be doing.

Oh, Gerard...

Issue of war resisters not akin to Vietnam, and Kennedy ought to know it

Writing in a blog post on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Gerard Kennedy submits what may be considered an impassioned plea for Canadians to support his bill to provide asylum to American war resisters.

In his plea, Kennedy envokes the memory of the Vietnam war and argues that Canada should offer asylum to American soldiers who come to Canada to avoid service, as consientious objectors were during the Vietnam war:

"A generation ago, Canada accepted thousands of "draft-dodgers" and also thousands of resisters who left active military service in the United States because of that conflict.

Have the intervening years since the Vietnam War really made us that much more timid as a people?"

It should be noted that, while the second question actually opens the article, it seems to be a much more appropriate

Kennedy's comparison of the current state of affairs is only one part of his post. Gerard Kennedy being Gerard Kennedy, he does help himself to an opportunity to throw in a partisan attack on the Conservative government.

But Kennedy would be well-advised to look in his own partisan back yard before casting stones at the government over this matter. After all, his own leader has raised significant concerns about sheltering American war resisters in Canada:

"Many, many very deep and and close friends of mine when I was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto came up to Canada to resist the draft. A Prime Minister that I very much admire made that a principle for Canada to give refuge to people who, for reasons of conscience, could not serve.

But I think that without pronouncing finally on the issue, I think there are some substantive differences between the situation in the '60s and the situation now. The individuals concerned volunteered for military service. The draft is not involved. Compulsion was not involved in the Iraqi case. I've met some of them personally. They volunteered for service and then came to have moral difficulties which they have every right to have. Now they want to stay.

The difficulty I have is that we are allies of the United States. Being an ally doesn't necessarily mean we approve of their policies in Iraq, but we're shoulder-to-shoulder in Afghanistan.

I'm uncomfortable about saying that people who volunteer for military service for a NATO ally should be given refuge in a country that is also an ally actively involved in combat. I'm not pronouncing finally on this, I'm just trying to be open and honest about my actual difficulty. This is an actual difficulty for me.

I don't want us to sacrifice our tradition of being a country that is a haven for people who have problems of conscience with military service, but I don't see that there is a perfect fit between what we did in the 1960s and what we're being asked for in [2009]."

Ignatieff made these comments in 2007, during a visit to the University of Alberta.

But Ignatieff is perfectly right to point out how difficult the issue of war resistors really is.

There is some room to evaluate these individuals based on their individual cases. Situations in which war resistors have been "stop lossed" (essentially press ganged into another tour of duty, which is effectively a form of conscription) or situations where an individual may have a legitimate religious objection or medical condition, there is clearly some room for discretion.

But in some specific cases -- such as that of Brad McCall, who enlisted in the US military after the war in Iraq was already in progress, ought to not have a prayer.

(McCall also had the temerity to move to Canada and start a blog insisting that "War resisters welcome here" -- as if he, not a non-citizen of this country, has any kind of right to make that pronouncement.)

Ignatieff is right to note that the matters surrounding US war resisters in Canada has grown significantly more complex since the end of the Vietnam war. To pretend that the situations are one and the same does no one any great service.

Whether Gerard Kennedy's bill is born of genuine concern over the issue or just a blatant attempt to pander to the anti-war movement is another matter entirely.

Two Bizarre, Confusing Sets of Priorities

Conservatives to cut party subsidies in economic update

As the country seemingly prepares to face down a recession-driven deficit, news reports indicate that the government may be set to cut the subsidies granted to Canadian political parties.

The subsides account for $30 million a year. But they account for a disproportionate amount of each party's total revenues.

At a rate of $1.95 per vote received, these subsidies would pay out $10 million to the Conservative party, $7.7 million to the Liberal party, $4.9 million to the NDP, $2.6 million to the Bloc Quebecois and $1.8 million to the seatless Green party.

The subsidies account for 37% of Conservative party revenues, 63% of the Liberal party's revenues, 57% for the NDP, 86% for the Bloc Quebecois and 65% for the Green party.

For their own part, Green party leader Elizabeth May and Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy have their own theories about the move. Unsurprisingly, their theories make the worst possible assumptions about the move.

"It's a very cynical ploy on Mr Harper's part obviously geared toward bankrupting the Liberal party more than helping out the Canadian taxpayer," May insisted.

"Is this really what we should be talking about, or should we be talking about the real measures that are going to help [Canadians] have a more secure job, more secure pensions and [allow their] savings to grow or at least be more secure?" asked Gerard Kennedy.

Each side of the debate actually has its merits. At $30 million, the subsidy cuts will fall far short of making up any shortfalls in federal revenues. Although it can be argued that every little bit counts, this is a $30 million that could just as well stay where it is.

At the same time, however, it's interesting to consider that the Liberal party -- a party whose members and supporters often seem to think it's entitled to govern indefinitely -- would so desperately need government subsidies simply to stay alive.

It isn't unreasonable to think that any party positioned to potentially govern the country should be able to fund itself through its fundraising efforts. To suggest that the country owes the party a subsidy even during a time of financial crisis suggests a woeful lack of priorities on the part of the Liberal party.

It's only natural that Gerard Kennedy and Eliabeth May would so desperately want to insist that there's a conspiracy to destroy the Liberal party afoot.

While it should be considered that this decision is very much in the Conservative party's favour, the truth regarding any insidious conspiracy is much different: the government is making a poor decision for what will most certainly be poor returns.

CBC Highlights Potential Darkside of Dion Leadership Win

Rex Murphy shines spotlight on Liberal leadership controversy

On 28 June, 2007, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation featured a segment by Terry Milewski that underscored the discomforting relationship between Canadian politicians and extremist (often terrorist) groups.

Members of all three of Canada's political parties have been known to have their brushes with these extremist groups (the NDP's El-Farouk Khaki marched in a pro-Hezbollah demonstration, Jean Chretien was once photographed with child soldiers at a Tamil Tigers fuction, and Conservative MP Jason Kenney once addressed a rally in support of an Iranian terrorist group).

Milewski's segment underlined, in particular, a recent controversy surrounding the Liberal party, and one of its MPs seeming links to Sikh separatist groups, possibly including those responsible for the Air India bombing.

At the 2006 leadership convention, when Bob Rae gave a speech mentioning the Air India bombing, a word-of-mouth campaign was seemingly organized against him by Sikh delegates at the convention. "My wife was approached by a delegate who happened to be a Sikh, not supporting Bob Rae and not knowing who my wife was," Dosanjh explained. "He said 'well, you shouldn't vote for Bob', because Bob expressed the issue of violence about Air India in his speech."

Rae's report on Air India identified Sikh separatists as being responsible for the bombing.

"It baffles me that you have delegates on the floor of a major political party (to which I belong) who do not want a reference to Air India in a candidate's speech," Dosanjh added.

When Gerard Kennedy lent his support to Stephane Dion, many analysts credited Mississauga-Brampton South MP Navdeep Singh Bains for putting the new Dion/Kennedy coalition over the top with the 250 Sikh delegates he had under his influence.

When Dion lead the Liberals in opposition to renewing the anti-terror act, this raised serious questions about Bains' father in law, Darshan Singh Saini, who was a potential witness to be called before a judicial investigative hearing being sheduled by the RCMP.

When the Liberals led the opposition parties in defeat of the anti-terror act provisions that allowed for such hearings, RCMP deputy commissioner Gary Bass announced, "while I do not dispute that the vote on this critical issue involved perhaps valid considerations beyond the Air India investigation, without a doubt, it represents a serious and damaging blow to the interests of the families in this case."

"The interests of the families in this case" being finding important answers regarding the bombing.

The Liberals insisted that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was "smearing" Bains. Stephane Dion insisted that his actions hadn't damaged the investigation at all. Yet, his actions also allow Darshan Singh Saini -- a former spokesman for Babba Khalsa Panthak, a Sikh terrorist group -- to refuse to testify at any Air India inquiry.

In fairness, it should be considered that Saini -- and Bains -- might have nothing at all to hide. Yet, Canadians are still waiting for definitive answers more than 22 years after the most deadly terror attack in Canada's history.

The opposition of Dion -- who won the Liberal leadership with significant support from Bains -- to the anti-terror act (which protects Saini, Bains' father-in-law) may be entirely coincidental. Unfortunately, because Saini cannot be compelled to testify at any type of hearing, and seems unlikely to testify voluntarily, Canadians can never truly be certain.

And while all of Canada's political parties have, from time to time, cozied up to extremist groups in exchange for political support (one has to especially wonder about support for Sikh separatists despite most of Canada's opposition to Quebecois separatists), the controversy circling Stephane Dion, Navdeep Singh Bains, Darshan Singh Saini and the anti-terror act stand as one of the few examples where such relationships have impacted public policy.

Without such answers, this controversy could be relegated to being one of the unsolved mysteries of Canadian politics.

Stephane Dion Turns Up the Slander

Dion makes potentially libelous accusation

As it often seems to in Canada, the mainstream media has allowed a potentially big story to slip through its fingers.

Yesterday, on CTV's Mike Duffy Live, Liberal leader Stephane Dion addressed rumours that banished former Liberal MP Joe Comuzzi would join the Conservative party. He suggested that Comuzzi, who broke ranks with the Liberal party over the recent federal budget, should be investigated for selling his seat to the Conservatives.

That's an extremely strong accusation. And despite Gerard Kennedy's later reluctance to either stand by his leader's accusation or distance himself from it, it does raise many interesting questions about Dion as a leader.

During the same interview, Dion also addressed his refusal to allow his MPs to vote in the interests of their ridings, as opposed to his willingness to allow his senators to do precisely that.

Comuzzi told Dion he would vote in favour of the budget due to its support of Thunder Bay's Molecular Medicine Research Centre. Before even having voted so, Comuzzi was expelled from the Liberal caucus (he didn't leave his party, as the 23 June CTV story falsely indicates).

Yet Dion defended his decision to allow Liberal senators to vote their conscience on the budget (which passed, necessitating support of Prime Minster Stephen Harper's allegedly "bad" budget from Liberal senators) under the following rationale: Parliament can defeat the government; The Senate can't.

In one interview, Dion admitted that his expulsion of Comuzzi was more about Dion's desire to defeat a confidence motion in the house than his support of a budget that Dion pledged to oppose before he had even seen it.

He then followed this up by flinging a very serious accusation at Comuzzi, one that will prove to be libelous if Comuzzi continues to sit as an MP, as opposed to resigning so that another individual may run for his seat.

Even then, could Dion's accusation also be applied to Belinda Stronach? Garth Turner? Wajid Kahn? David Emerson? Former Conservative MP (now independent) Bill Casey was also wrongfully expelled from his caucus over the budget. If he defects to the Liberals -- and certainly Dion would be chomping at the bit to have him -- would he also be "selling his seat"?

Dion has opened two very dangerous cans of worms -- one that proves that party unity means far less to him than his single-minded desire to become Prime Minister, and another that proves that, despite his claims that he is a "gentleman", he is willing to say absolutely anything to gain an edge for himself, no how ungentlemanly his comments may be.

With a slanderous approach such as this, it's no wonder that so few Canadians want Dion to be Prime Minister. If the mainstream media -- particularly CTV, which is doing a disappointing job of reporting comments made on its own telecast -- were bringing such things to the attention of Canadians, it's likely that fewer still could stomach the thought.


UPDATE: Comuzzi has officially joined the Conservative party caucus.

Video Never Lies

Amateur Attack Ads Tell Interesting story

It’s official. YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon.

Like many recent cultural phenomena, perhaps the greatest strength of YouTube is that it offers its users a do-it-yourself online media outlet (not much unlike blogs – hello!).

Like any do-it-yourself media outlet, YouTube was quickly harnessed for political means. Various people have used YouTube – as well as similar sites such as Google Video – for various political purposes. Those with a stake in the current Liberal leadership campaign are no different.

Often, the way the grassroots uses the do-it-yourself online media tells an interesting story.

Once again, the current Liberal leadership contest is no different.

A number of amateur attack ads have been uploaded to these sites. They convey an interesting image of the Liberal party at this turning point in its history – and it may not be a very pretty picture at that.

The bulk of the videos take aim at one of two targets (if, of course, one ignores the mass of attention paid to George Bush and Stephen Harper): frontrunners Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff.

”Once a Dipper, Always a Dipper” takes aim at Rae, predictably highlighting Rae’s career as the disastrous NDP premier of Ontario, and listing several inflammatory quotes made about the Liberals during that time. “Keep leadership in the family,” becomes the theme of the piece.

”Timmy” portrays a couple of pop-art Ontarians, NDP supporters turned Liberals, shocked to learn of Rae’s candidacy for the Liberal leadership. While the mother is driven to drinking, the father tells his son Timmy the story of “Rae days” in scant detail. Rae Days are also the subject of ”Potholes”. In ”NDP Orange” it is actually suggested that Rae’s candidacy for the Liberal leadership metaphorically pisses on the “great” image and legacy of the Liberal party.

George Bush and the Republicans also become an omnipresent spectre. In ”Michael Ignatieff Outakes”, a South Park-style animated Ignatieff needs to be corrected after announcing his candidacy for the Republican party. He is later on seen ogling a map of Iraq. ”Fit to Be President” makes use of Hulk Hogan’s famous “Real American” entry music, and makes reference to some of Ignatieff’s contentious writings on imperialism and torture, as well as a photoshopped image of Iggy with an Eagle perched on his outstretched ”Presidential Finger”. A video of this title tries to turn a hand gesture into a political issue (yet curiously makes few references to Pierre Trudeau’s Prime Ministerial finger).

Speaking of Pierre Trudeau, no Liberal campaign of any sort could possibly be complete without someone exhuming his ideological grave, and this campaign is no exception to this rule. ”Quebec as a Nation: A New Perspective” quotes Pierre Trudeau at length on the issue of Quebec nationalism, painting Michael Ignatieff – whose recent Quebec as a nation appeal reopened the issue – as an outsider, out of touch with Liberal values. Video can also be found of Justin Trudeau responding to Ignatieff’s suggestion.

Even nutbars such as Alex Jones have weighed in, spreading their typical paranoid nonsense, and insinuating that Bob Rae could be used as a sacrificial lamb to allow the Conservative party to help institute a North American Union of Canada, Mexico and the United States.

To be fair, there are some bright spots. In particular, Gerard Kennedy’s supporters have posted some positive ads, highlighting their candidate’s strengths.

Frankly, these ads do not paint a flattering picture of the Liberal party.

Not only do they paint a start picture of a party divided against itself, they also reinforce the (arguably) popular public image of the Liberals as a party running headlong into a dead end – of a party so committed to living in the past that they cannot possibly lay claim to the bold vision for the future they often lay claim to. Between rampant anti-Americanism, and political xenophobia, these ads show a side of the Liberal party they would likely much rather remain private.

But nothing remains private when it is posted to online video, for the entire world to see.

Bush and Harper Running for Liberal Leadership?

Listening to the rhetoric being traded by the candidates for the leadership of the federal Liberal party, one would suspect that Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper and U.S. President George W. Bush were candidates for the job.

Each candidate has taken seemingly every opportunity to draw as close a relationship between Harper and Bush as humanly possible. Waxing rhetorically about the “similarities between Harper and Bush”, the leadership candidates have made a point of forcing the issue.

Even when mocking this tendency, Stephan Dion asserts, “yes, Harper is terrible,” while shrugging.

It’s safe to say that if any of the leading candidates – frontrunner Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Stephan Dion and Gerard Kennedy – were running against Harper or Bush for the Liberal leadership, they would win in a landslide. Unfortunately for them, they aren’t. So is focusing on Harper and Bush a wise decision?

Regardless of the wisdom (or potential lack thereof) of treating Harper and Bush as de facto candidates new. Before the campaign even began, the youth wing of the Liberal party distributed approximately 100 stickers to their university chapters . The stickers were a photoshopped mock-up of the Brokeback Mountain movie posters, with Harper and Bush’s faces substituted for those of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It is branded “Brokeback Conservativism”, and described as “a story about two friends who share ideas, ideologies, and long walks on the beach…”

The obvious homophobia aside (from members of the ever-so-tolerant Liberal party, too…), the stickers are merely one symptom of the Liberal party’s use of George Bush as a political tactic.

This was also prophetic of the candidate’s use of Harper/Bush comparisons during the campaign. John Diamond, the president of Young Liberals of Canada, in an interview with Concordia’s The Link, suggested this would be brought up during the leadership campaign – which it has.

There are some within the Liberal party who are concerned about this tendency. “I think [the campaign] is a little over the top. I don’t think that they have that much in common,” said Nick Blesser, the 2005/06 vice-president of the Concordia University Liberal Party Association. “I think it’s demonizing both individuals, which is not always a good idea. It creates more skepticism, and there is already too much of that among young people today.”

Blesser also clued into the homophobic statement made by the stickers. “Are you implying something sexual? No, I don’t,” he said.

It seems that the Liberal party’s attempts to equate Stephen Harper with George W. Bush have been bearing fruit. As the U.S. inches ever closer to its midterm elections, Canadian pollsters have found that the Conservative and Liberal parties are currently tied for support amongst Canadians. In a Strategic Council poll of 1,000 voters, the two parties were found to be tied at 32% apiece, with support in Quebec dipping to 16%.

According to the Strategic Council’s Allan Gregg, same-sex marriage, the Kyoto protocol and the war in Afghanistan are the key issues separating the Liberals and Conservatives in Quebec.

Diamond focused on Harper’s promised vote on potentially re-opening the same-sex marriage debate, saying, “To me, [same-sex marriage] is an issue of equality. [Harper] wants to open reopen this discussion, these are things that smack of George W. Bush republicanism.”

It isn’t limited to the leadership campaign, either.

Scott Reid, a Liberal party spokesperson, has delighted in pointing out what he wants Canadians to believe are Harper’s “three B’s: Bullying, BS and Bush”. He takes any opportunity he can to needle the Conservative party about allegedly “wearing Bush’s belt buckle” or “Bush’s pyjamas”.

The focus on equating Stephen Harper with George W. Bush may be paying dividends for now, but one can’t help but wonder if they will continue to be successful once the American midterm elections have passed, and the imaginations of Canadians are drawn to more important matters.

Worse yet, the Liberal party may want to consider what it will do should the current minority government endure past 2008, when Bush leaves office. Suddenly, what may well be their most successful PR tactic will have disappeared into history’s long night, leaving the Liberals to find a new tactic.

Perhaps what would be wise is if the Liberal party were to focus on establish a record as the Opposition to campaign on, instead of resorting to distraction tactics while quietly playing partisan politics with key issues such as the environment.

Michael Ignatieff & Stephen Harper: Their Feet & Their Mouths

Open mouth. Insert foot. Repeat as necessary.

Michael Ignatieff is not a happy man. This may have something to do with the fact that he’s had a very rough week.

On monday, Ignatieff was criticized for not attending a leadership debate. On Tuesday, Ignatieff accused Israel of war crimes. On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper used Ignatieff’s comments to (perhaps unwisely) label the candidates in the Liberal leadership campaign as “Anti-Israel”. On Friday, Ignatieff responded to Harper, but also lashed out at the media.

“Yesterday, Stephen Harper used my statement that war crimes were committed in this (Mideast) conflict to launch a personal attack on me and on my colleagues running for the Liberal leadership of Canada,” Ignatieff complained. “Mr. Harper's comments were a disgrace, a disgrace for a man who holds an office that is supposed to represent all Canadians.”

“There is no basis whatever for Mr. Harper to suggest that the Liberal party is biased against Israel.,” Ignatieff insisted. “The prime minister showed a profound lack of respect to the Official Opposition and a profound lack of respect to the Canadian people who elected them."

"Being a friend means speaking honestly and this week I did that, I spoke honestly about this summer's terrible conflict," he said. "It was a conflict provoked by Hezbollah and its backers to lure Israel into a wide war, it was a conflict in which Israel exercised its right to respond and to send a terrorist militia a clear message that its actions cannot and would not be tolerated."

However, on October 10, in a Radio-Canada interview, Ignatieff said, "I was a professor of human rights, and I am also a professor of the laws of war, and what happened in Qana was a war crime."

So, to recap, on Tuesday, Israel is a war criminal. On Friday, Hezbollah are war criminals.

In any conventional sense of the term, this would be a huge flip-flop.

On Thursday, Stephen Harper described Ignatieff’s previous accusations as “consistent with the anti-Israeli position that has been taken by virtually of the candidates for the Liberal leadership.” However, on Friday he noted that Joe Volpe and Scott Brison were exceptions to his assertions.

Now, what Harper said was inflammatory, but was it accurate?

Ignatieff’s aforementioned comments on Israel, and subsequent flip-flop on the issue, demonstrate that he is merely doing what he can to exploit the Israeli issue for political gain.

Gerard Kennedy issued the standard promises to recognize Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, but his supporters have been more vocal, accusing Israel of conducting ‘state terrorism’.

"We don't want to see any more terrorism, whether the terrorism of suicide bombers or launching rockets or state terrorism. This is state terrorism," said Kennedy supporter Boris Wrzesnewskyj.

Even more interesting are the comments of Kennedy supporter Thomas Hubert, who advocated eliminating all “Zionists” from the Liberal party. "The Liberal Party is stronger without these violent Zionists in our party. I am glad for them to cease influencing our foreign policy so we are free to promote Canadian values of peace. It amazes me that this community is so absurdly selfish. The only issue that matters to them is the defence of a "state" that survives on the blood of innocent people. Shameful.”

Harper has already admitted that Stephan Dion is not anti-Israel.

But as it relates to Bob Rae, Harper may be a little bit off. In a 2002 opinion article entitled “Parting Company with the NDP”, Rae (who is of Jewish descent) criticized what he believed to be a strong anti-Israel bias in the NDP.

On his website, www.Bobrae.ca, Rae even issued the following statement, “The issue is not simply Israel's right to defend itself - it is how to police a border, how to reduce tension, how to create the preconditions for dialogue. Israel has a right to live in peace within secure, internationally recognized borders. At the moment this clearly requires the presence of peace monitors. Lebanon cannot and will not do it and has called for a UN presence on its soil to assist in this. The UN must respond."

"Canada's further efforts need to focus on the refusal of both Hezbollah and Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist. These radical groups, clearly fuelled by money and other assistance from Iran and Syria, point to the biggest obstacle to peace: an inability to accept Israel as a legitimate country in the region. Ideologies that cannot accept the presence of other people, with different religions, languages, and loyalties, are a profound threat to the peace of the world."

That is not, by any means, an anti-Israel statement.

For Harper, the leader of the federal Conservative party, commenting on the statements of the leading candidate for the Liberal leadership is perfectly legitimate. However, Harper needs to keep one important fact in mind.

In Canada, conservatives do not win on rhetoric. They have to win on facts.

Labelling all the candidates for the Liberal leadership as “anti-Israel” takes an issue that should be discussed in terms of fact, and transforms it into a rhetorical issue.

He should, at the very least, avoid making comments he can’t defend. As it pertains to two of the four frontrunners for the Liberal leadership, Harper can’t defend these comments.

However, in the cases of Ignatieff and Kennedy, defending their own comments (and those of their supporters) is a matter they should be good deal more concerned with. As the frontrunner, Ignatieff needs to be doubly concerned.