Roy G Biv
Senior Member
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/19/conservative-accuse-liberals-anti-semitism.html
No more complaining about Martin/Chretien tactics. This is below-the-belt. Our political discourse is degrading to American levels. This is how voters become jaded. The 10-percenter is absolutely disgusting. The last point is a blatant lie as the Israeli government asked the Liberal government to observe and protest the conference in person.
Liberals are incensed that Conservative MPs have distributed taxpayer-funded pamphlets that suggest the Grits are anti-Semitic.
Even New Democrat and Bloc Québécois MPs agree the latest propaganda represents a new low in the Tories' increasingly partisan use of so-called 10 percenters, mailings that MPs are entitled to send to voters outside their own ridings.
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."
The pamphlets 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.
No more complaining about Martin/Chretien tactics. This is below-the-belt. Our political discourse is degrading to American levels. This is how voters become jaded. The 10-percenter is absolutely disgusting. The last point is a blatant lie as the Israeli government asked the Liberal government to observe and protest the conference in person.