Federal Liberals are furious and are accusing the Conservatives of distributing taxpayer-funded leaflets that suggest the Grits are antisemitic.
Even NDP and Bloc Quebecois MPs have chimed in, calling the leaflets a new low in the Conservatives’ partisan use of the “ten percenters” — mailings that MPs are allowed to send to voters outside their own riding.
Conservatives are refusing to apologize and say the leaflets are factually accurate and that the Liberals have flip-flopped on Israel, terrorism and the fight against ant-Semitism.
The leaflets were handed out in five Liberal ridings with high Jewish populations, under the names of five different Tory MPs.
The pamphlets ask voters to pick a federal leader who “is on the right track to represent and defend the values of Canada’s Jewish community.”
They say Prime Minister Stephen Harper “led the world” in boycotting the second UN-sponsored conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, which was dubbed a “hate fest against Israel.”
The previous Liberal government “willingly participated in (the) overtly antisemitic” first Durban conference in 2001, the pamphlets add.
Harper “strongly backed Israel’s right to self-defence against Hezbollah” during the Lebanon conflict in 2006 but Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff “accused Israel of committing war crimes,” the leaflets say.
The Conservatives also say they led the world against Hamas, while the Liberals wanted them de-listed as a terrorist organization.
