Tory pamphlets courting Jewish voters anger Grits

Liberals are demanding an apology from the Conservative government for distributing taxpayer-funded pamphlets that suggest the Grits are anti-Semitic.

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who represents the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, said the flyer campaign "crosses the line." The pamphlets are "abusive, almost hate speech that should not be found in civil discourse," he told CBC News.

New Democrat and Bloc Qubcois MPs have agreed the latest propaganda represents a new low in the Tories' increasingly partisan use of so-called 10-percenters. These aremailings that MPs are entitled to send to voters outside their own ridings as long as they are not sent to more than 10 per cent of households in the 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.

"You should not be using a 10 per cent mailing for partisan purposes, and pernicious, and in this case, almost defamatory purposes," said Cotler. "It's bad enough that they go ahead and falsely [accuse] the Liberals of supporting Hamas. Political propaganda is an understatement here."

Pamphlets misleading, say Liberals

The black, grey and white pamphlets 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 Geneva, Switzerland, which the pamphlets dubbed a "hate fest against Israel."

By contrast, the previous Liberal government "willingly participated in [the] overtly anti-Semitic" first such conference, heldin Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

Cotler calls that statement a "serious misrepresentation" that implies anti-Semitism. "I did participate in Durban 1, but I spoke up against what turned out to be an anti-Semitic conference."

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.

"This doesn't mean people there overtly participated in anti-Semitism," Cotler insisted. "That's utterly false. In fact, it's the other way around."

The pamphlet also delves into the thorny issue of Hezbollah. It states that Harper "strongly backed Israel's right to self-defence against Hezbollah" during the bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 while 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 de-listed as a terrorist organization.

Cotler says 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.

Some Jewish groups back Conservatives

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 10-percenters, 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."