Debates of Nov. 26th, 2009

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary a couple of questions.

It is ironic. He is speaking with this vein in that he made such disparaging comments himself about aboriginals for which he was forced to apologize, so he knows all about saying something and then having to backtrack.

I want to ask him, does he understand what defamation is? I know that he has no legal training. I know he went to various universities before making a career of politics and the drive-by smear his life's blood. But does he understand that defamation includes publishing a comment, coupled with a damaging comment, coupled with a lack of a qualified privilege that this publication would not have, in distributing an untruth?

Does he agree with the words of the Speaker who said, at 3:16 this afternoon that the critical role that context played in shaping the cumulative net effect of the words was damaging?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I believe the matter is that the facts of the Liberal Party's position on the Middle East are damaging to the Liberal Party, but that is not the responsibility of anyone other than the Liberal Party itself.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to this afternoon's debate with great interest. I completely understand the distress the hon. member for Mount Royal is feeling at this time, because I think this member has an excellent reputation. However, the reason for his distress is that his viewpoints are different from those of some of the members of his political party, especially his leader.

Getting back to today's debate, I have a question for the hon. member for Nepean—Carleton.

In my own constituency, I receive ten percenters from members of other parties, particularly members of the official opposition. I find those quite reprehensible. I avoid sending them into their constituencies.

I wonder if the hon. member for Nepean—Carleton has received, in his district, ten percenters signed and approved by members of other political parties.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, yes, I believe that some of our colleagues in the Liberal Party have sent ten percenters that Canadian soldiers have found disparaging of their vocation.

Another member of the Liberal caucus was forced to apologize for a regrettable ten percenter that she sent in which she made references to body bags. I know that the aboriginal community was very offended and hurt by that particular ten percenter.

Now we have learned that the Liberal Party is using the issue of Taliban prisoners as part of its efforts to raise money at the expense of the reputations of our soldiers and diplomats who are serving so courageously abroad.

There have been instances where political parties have misused their mailing privileges and have sent out literature that is unacceptable.

I would also like to recognize the very good work of the member for Ottawa—Orléans in serving his constituents. He has been a real model of hard work and of the parliamentarian spirit in the way that he serves people around this House. I think members on all sides would agree with me that he is an inspiration to his community and that he acts as a real leader in this House of Commons. I think we can give him a round of applause for that.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am sad and disappointed to be rising to speak to this issue. This regrettable set of ten percenters and this breach of privilege through misleading, false, pernicious, defamatory information targeting a religious community is so damaging in so many ways.

It was a very sad day when these were sent into our communities, and it is a sad day when we have to hear from the members opposite defending this completely outrageous and undermining project.

These ten percenters undermine people's trust in government. They feed into the very kind of mistrust that the public has of their elected representatives. They undermine democracy. We are at a time when barely 60% of the public bothers to vote. Why? Because they do not trust their political representatives.

In my view, every parliamentarian should be aware at every moment that it is their job to restore that trust because that means restoring our democracy. To see those members of the House deliberately and sneeringly undermining the public trust with this kind of divisive, totally distorted smear piece is very sad for our democracy.

I think the previous speakers have pointed out where the information in these ten percenters is loaded with mistruths and where it is propaganda of the worst kind aimed at a religious group. That by itself is more than disappointing. It is outrageous. To then use the public's dollars to do that certainly is, and I do not want to say icing on the cake because there is nothing good about this.

The undermining of the public's trust is a huge breach of the contract that we have with the public. So to use taxpayers' dollars for this is completely and utterly unacceptable.

This is part of a pattern with the government. This is a government that talked about Kyoto and climate change as being a socialist plot to take money out of people's pockets, and then turned around and pretends to care about climate change though we know that with an absence of a plan in four years, it actually does not. It is hypocrisy and an undermining of the public's trust.

These ten percenters are an illustration of hypocrisy that undermines the public, that undermines the public's belief in their—

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Correct me if I am wrong, but the issue of climate change is not the content of the ten percenter in question. I would certainly instruct—

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Sure it is.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

We are talking about a specific ten percenter and its content in the debate, Madam Speaker. Now we are talking about climate change. I would at least ask you to advise the member to stick to the discussion at hand.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I have heard members from both sides of the House wander considerably from the subject close at hand, but I would urge members from all sides of the House to come back to the point of the ten percenters, specifically as raised.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am using that example to underline the hypocrisy of these ten percenters. I would point out that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister spoke on a range of issues that was not directly related.

One of the things these ten percenters do is undermine Liberals. Their reputations are impugned, particularly the member from Montreal who has been speaking on this. The undermining of the fight against anti-Semitism causes me to be beyond disappointed and angry.

Members opposite, including the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, went to London, under the leadership of a Liberal member of Parliament, to attend a conference to fight anti-Semitism. Out of that came an agreement that anti-Semitism was far too important to be a partisan issue and we needed to fight it together.

This ten percenter sends the complete opposite message. It says that members will use anti-Semitism as a partisan issue to wedge Canadians and drive dissension in the Jewish community. There are certainly differences of opinion on the appropriateness of the ten percenter.

Sending out slanderous and defaming materials, after having agreed that this issue is too important to be a partisan one, undermines other activities of the House. One of those activities is the inquiry into anti-Semitism, of which I am a panel member.

To have this kind of material sent across the country into opposition members' ridings, targeting Liberal opposition members, and at the same time expecting the public to believe that this inquiry, for which imminent scholars are coming from London and places around the world to give testimony on anti-Semitism, makes a mockery, unfortunately, of the inquiry's work.

It is very difficult to hold up our heads as a country in which anti-Semitism is such an important non-partisan issue. How can we inquire into the incidents and causes so we can help reduce and combat anti-Semitism when the House allows this kind of breach of privilege and defamation of the Liberal Party, this kind of targeting of a religious community and these kinds of statements, which are deliberately misleading?

I would encourage the members on the opposite side of the House, who are part of the Canadian parliamentary committee combatting anti-Semitism, to think about holding their heads high as we bring people in from thousands of miles away to talk to us about this very important issue that involves human rights, racism, humanity and compassion. To have this kind of breach of privilege going on at the same time undermines the work we are doing in that inquiry. That is a very discouraging.

I know members spend hours per week on this issue because they care about it. Racism is not acceptable, nor is anti-Semitism. Why can Canada not find a way to work with dignity and determination on this issue?

Canada has a parliamentary group of some 20 people who are working very hard to combat anti-Semitism. If some of those members believe that it is acceptable to target members of the opposition with this kind of pernicious, taxpayer-funded garbage, I find that very unfortunate.

What must the public think about Parliament when it gets this kind of literature, which clearly distorts,which is clearly untrue and out of context and which smears an hon. member whose life's work has been fighting anti-Semitism? What must the public think about our commitment to fighting anti-Semitism together?

Parliamentarians went to London, most of them on their own dime, to attend a conference. U.K. parliamentarians worked together on an inquiry looking into anti-Semitism. It was important work and they came up with important conclusions. They concluded that anti-Semitism was not being tracked properly, that it needed to be tracked so they could try to prevent it from happening again. Never did we hear a breath of implication that those members were undermining and smearing each other on a side initiative like this. That is simply not the case.

This makes it embarrassing to be a Canadian just as it makes it embarrassing to be a Canadian when the government is blocking action on climate change.

This is an example of complete hypocrisy. On the one hand, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism goes to London under the leadership of the Liberal member for Mount Royal. On the other hand, he sits in the House and defends this kind of garbage. Unfortunately, that reflects on the quality of the executive council of the Government of Canada. I find that very unfortunate because we need to restore the public's trust in its political representatives.

This is just one of a number of examples of government hypocrisy, whether it is the government stating that it will be accountable for public dollars and then spending public money on advertising, or whether it is failed economic policies such as the government promising not to tax income trusts and then turning around and doing just that.

These flyers went into people's mail slots, people who may not have access to thoughtful information on this issue, people who may not read newspapers or go on websites and get both points of view. People think because they see the Prime Minister's picture on a flyer, the information in the flyer must be true. There are many people like that across Canada.

This is a huge undermining of the public trust. Each and every member opposite should be embarrassed with these kinds of slanderous statements, falsehoods, misrepresentations and out and out defamatory claims.

It is very disappointing to me personally who in good faith has been working with Conservative members, Bloc members and NDP members to combat anti-Semitism. It makes me wonder whether I should resume my role next week as a panellist on a panel of inquiry into anti-Semitism, which was set up under the principle that this issue was too important to be partisan. All parliamentarians involved on that panel decided that. They decided we would all work together and put partisanship aside on the issue of anti-Semitism.

Does that make sense to members opposite? It certainly did to the members who were part of the inquiry panel and part of the association to combat anti-Semitism. I will point out that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is a member of that group, the group that said this issue was too important to be partisan.

I would ask the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and the members opposite this. Is this no longer an important enough issue to be non-partisan? Do they believe this issue is just one more thing on which to use divisive partisan tactics? Is this human rights? Is this racism? Is this disgusting, historic, human failing and weakness that we call anti-Semitism not matter to them any more? Is this not one of the things they think is worth countering? How can anyone take the members opposite seriously when this kind of drivel goes out to neighbourhoods and to household after household across the country?

I will challenge any of the members opposite who agree with me to make public their disgust at these materials. For the members who agree that anti-Semitism is too important to be partisan with, I challenge them to say publicly that this is not acceptable. We have Liberals who have been leaders on this issue. They have included members of all parties, to work together in a collaborative fashion, to draw in members of communities, community leaders, people from outside of Canada, experts, academics to bring forward their views, case studies, analyses, statistics and sociological understanding of anti-Semitism.

This ten percenter, this breach of trust of the public, this breach of privilege is not part, I hope, of the Conservative Party because it is certainly not part of our Liberal Party. The member for Mount Royal has created an international definition of the new anti-Semitism that is accepted and respected around the world. People who fight anti-Semitism around the world work with him.

To implicate that member in this defamatory breach of privilege has gone beyond anything the Conservative Party has done to date with all of the other hypocritical stances it has taken such as it claiming to be for accountability. The RCMP had to raid its offices because of alleged attempts to cheat on election advertising rules. There is a long list of hypocritical actions on the part of the government, but this is absolutely the lowest. Whether it is about advertising or tax, yes that hurts people, but this is about anti-Semitism. This ties into the kind of prejudice and hatred that we have no place for in Canada. This ties into human behaviour that is from the darkest side of humanity, behaviour that has, as we know, caused unspeakable tragedies in other parts of the world in other eras, tragedies that we must never forget and we must work toward ensuring never happen again.

One way we have been doing that, as an interparliamentary group, is through the coalition to combat anti-Semitism. It is through the inquiry that we find out what is happening on campuses and on the streets. Are people of the Jewish faith able to feel safe in their communities? The inquiry is looking into that. What can we do about it so all Canadians can feel safe, so they can be protected by the rule of law, our human rights, and have their differences and their religion respected?

We are working on that together, or we were working on that together. It is very difficult to see how that group can work together day after day, week after week, and have the trust, confidence and support of respected academics and respected leaders from the United States, Britain, and elsewhere around the world come and help us work on this.

How can we expect that with this kind of breach of privilege happening, this kind of disgusting piece of abuse of taxpayer dollars? How can we expect them to take Canadian parliamentarians seriously? How can we expect them to take a parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism seriously when this kind of abuse is taking place?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I regret to interrupt but perhaps the hon. member could continue her comments in questions and comments.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Madam Speaker, I do agree with at least one thing the hon. member said, that all 308 members of this House should stand strongly against anti-Semitism. I do agree with that.

However, the subject matter at hand today is the ten percenter that went out. There seems to be particular focus on the three clauses of the ten percenter, the three arguments in terms of the Liberals' position. There seems to be particular focus by the Liberal members on the phrase that the Liberals “willingly participated in overtly anti-Semitic Durban I”.

What I would ask the hon. member to specifically answer is which part of that phrase is untrue, according to her? She went on at considerable length about how this is untrue. Is it the part that Durban I was overtly anti-Semitic, or is it the part that says the Liberals willingly participated?

I am just curious which of the two parts is untrue, because she has made it very clear that she feels that that phrase is untrue. Is it that the Liberals willingly participated that is untrue, or is it the part that Durban I is anti-Semitic?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will in turn ask the member opposite a question.

How can he assert that all members of this House are committed to fighting anti-Semitism when the member and his government are undermining the very process that has been put in place by parliamentarians to fight anti-Semitism, the very credibility of this Parliament and the very capability of that process to have any kind of justification or credibility in the minds of the scholars and the leaders who care about this issue and who we need to help us to reduce anti-Semitism? How can he claim that?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would agree with me that it is interesting that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, in his opening defence of these egregious ten percenters, made some interesting comments which were along this line.

It is interesting that the minister said that he condemns anti-Semitism, then he said that we as Liberals participated in an anti-Semitic conference, but he will not say that we are anti-Semitic. How does he get himself out of that?

If he says that we all participated willingly in an anti-Semitic conference, and that is the impression that was left with the voters of Mount Royal and why the Speaker has ruled on the contextual aspect of the ten percenter, if he says we supported it and participated willingly in an anti-Semitic conference, how can he not conclude that we are anti-Semitic and why would he not say it? He knows it is not true.

That is the question.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, much of what we have heard from the other side of the House is not true. Much of it is hypocritical, and that is the exact point I have been making.

We all know that the member for Mount Royal is the flag bearer for combatting anti-Semitism. We know that he is sought after as a speaker around the world because of his scholarly and parliamentary work to counter anti-Semitism.

The members on the other side of the House know that as well. They know very well that his presence at Durban was a constructive one, and that he stayed because he was asked to stay to bear witness to what was going on there.

They know very well that he spoke up publicly and loudly against participating in Durban II. I heard him do that personally in London in the conference to combat anti-Semitism. I am very struck by how there is a member of the government who is willing to be this hypocritical. The mistruths, as just pointed out by my colleague, are staggering for someone who should take his responsibility to the people of Canada and to the Jewish community seriously.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would just like to warn members about attributing motives like hypocritical to other members of the House. It verges on being unparliamentary.

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Mount Royal.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to make a point that perhaps is getting overlooked in this debate. The flyer that was sent out was in the form of a ballot. That kind of flyer outside an election campaign is itself an abuse of process on public funds.

That flyer asked which of the two parties, Liberal or Conservative, better represents issues of value and concern to the Jewish community. Then that flyer purports to compare the position of the two parties, not what individual members in each of the parties might have said, but the position of the two parties as a matter of record.

The member for Nepean—Carleton said that we should be looking at the facts. That is the point. What was said as a matter of fact? I have no quarrel with the Conservative government setting forth its position on these matters and even setting forth its own position favourably, but that is not what that flyer did. That flyer perniciously and falsely misled the targeted ridings as to what the positions of the Liberal Party were and the members of that party.

The hon. member for Nepean—Carleton said that the facts caused me or others to have our standing reduced because of our party's position on these issues. That is not the case. It was the misleading and pernicious misrepresentation of those facts, as the Speaker found in his ruling. That is what reduced our standing and reputation.

When the hon. member says that the Liberal Party as a party sought the delisting of Hezbollah, in fact, it was the Liberal government that put Hamas and Hezbollah on the terrorist list. When the Conservatives say that the Liberal government was at Durban willingly participating in an anti-Semitic conference, that is associating us and identifying us with anti-Semitism.

Those are the misleading and false allegations and accusations made by them, which undermined us as a party and undermined every individual member's standing and reputation. For that, they still owe an apology to the House and they owe an apology to each of the constituents in each of the ridings that received, on public funds, those false, misleading and malicious flyers.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I agree. I call on the members opposite to make that apology.

I also remind the members opposite that those who went to London agreed that parliamentarians should return to their legislatures, establish inquiry scrutiny panels that are tasked with determining the existing nature and state of anti-Semitism in their countries and develop recommendations for governments and civil society action. That is what those of us who went to London agreed to. We agreed to do it in a non-partisan way.

We did not agree and we were not instructed to take materials, use taxpayers' dollars, and circulate pernicious falsehoods about a previous government and an opposition party for partisan gain. I think those members should be ashamed and they should apologize.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this motion. Quite frankly, and I say this both on a personal basis as a member of Parliament, but also on behalf of my party, I have been extremely offended by the tactics and the use of this ten percenter and the content of the ten percenter. Tomorrow, I will be here nine years and this is absolutely the worst ten percenter I have seen. I say that without any reservations. It is absolutely the worst one.

There may be one good thing that comes out of this. I really want to praise the Speaker for his ruling. It was absolutely appropriate, and I will come back to that in a minute. I am hoping that out of this, when this gets to the committee and the committee reviews it and comes back to the House with recommendations as to how the breach of the privilege should be dealt with, we may in fact clean up the process around the ten percenters, their use at taxpayers' expense. I am hoping that we never have to face this type of material going out at taxpayers' expense in the future. That should be our goal. That should be the goal of all sides of the House coming out of this experience.

I want to praise the Speaker for his ruling. He was absolutely right to look at this material in its general context. We can play semantic games with this kind of material. If we take it out of context, try to limit it in its scope by using semantics, we could argue that it is not what in fact it is.

What in fact it is, is a document that, to any objective observer reading it, accuses the Liberals of being anti-Semitic. There is no other way of interpreting this if we take the whole context, if we look at the ridings it was sent into and if we look at some of the people who were targeted, some of the Liberal members who were targeted. I would say in that regard, I have had the pleasure, and I hope this does not show up in a ten percenter or a householder at some time, of working fairly closely with both the member for Mount Royal and the member for Winnipeg South Centre. Their ridings were two of the ridings that were targeted. To accuse them, given their long history, both of them, of fighting for human rights, fighting for civil liberties, fighting for a just society, quite frankly is inexcusable. The same could probably be said for some of the other members. It is just that I know those two better than the others. To send it into those ridings is an all-time low for this House.

We could almost see how this comes up. It is political people, party people, who write these things. That is probably something that should be changed by all the political parties. We should take a look at the orientation. We could see this coming out in a pamphlet during the course of an election, written by people in political parties who go over the top in attacking other members of the House and candidates in other political parties. However, when we recognize that this is a document that is going out at the expense of taxpayers, it is a document that is going out under the authority of the House, which is the only way these are allowed to go out, again the content is just reprehensible. It should not have happened.

I want to go back to the contextual arguments, because the Speaker was right in doing this. When we look at that, there is another form of discrimination going on here in the targeting of specific ridings known to have a large Jewish community. It is discriminatory to them, to the members of those constituencies, because it makes presumptions about how they vote, about what their biases may be, and about what their orientations may be. It presumes, and I think this is where the discrimination comes in, how they are going to react based on their faith, their ethnic background or whatever, in this case particularly on their faith.

That type of targeting, again, should not be allowed. It should not be allowed in any context, but certainly if there is a document that is being paid for by taxpayers and authorized by this House, it simply should not go out.

This is probably more appropriate for the committee to be taking into account, but I want to go back to my opening statement about looking for some good to come out of this. I have to say that I would not be satisfied if the recommendation coming back from the committee were simply for an apology.

An apology is acceptable if a mistake has been made, a factual mistake. That is not the case here. This goes way beyond that. It cannot be argued that somebody preparing this material and sending it out did not know, did not intentionally know what the consequences were going to be, how it would be interpreted and how it would be seen by the recipients of this material.

In my opinion, an apology in this case is not sufficient. That should be forthcoming from the government. In fact it should be forthcoming today. It should have been given when this first came to the public's attention. That alone is not sufficient. There has to be some other consequence of this type of egregious behaviour.

One of the suggestions we will be putting forward to that committee is that the cost of this to the Canadian taxpayers should be reimbursed to the Canadian government by the Conservative Party. I think that would be a much more appropriate penalty, not just for the riding of Mount Royal but for all 10 or 12 ridings it went to.

It will be a fairly expensive penalty, but maybe the message will get through not only to the Conservatives, because I think there have been other political parties from time to time that have crossed the line, again, though as I said earlier, not as badly as this one has. The message will go out.

The final point I will make is that hopefully there will also be recommendations regarding the content of ten percenters in the future, and regarding how we might restrict that so that these types of attacks and discriminatory, bigoted allegations would never be allowed again.

Those are all the comments I have. Again I want to praise the Speaker for his ruling. I think it has been an excellent one and maybe it will bring us to some conclusion that will help this House to function more efficiently and fairly in the future.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that I would like to make clear is that as a relatively new member of the House, I do find these mailings to be important.

They are important for a couple of reasons. One is that they help a democratic debate. They help to explain policy. They help to explain other people's policies. While we are talking about this particular issue in the House today, which I am sure the government will admit was an error, I would not like to see the program stymied in any way, because I find it very important in terms of getting my message out.

I just wonder if my colleague would like to make a comment on the value of these ten percenters.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I am glad the member asked that question, Madam Speaker, because it was a point I meant make in my address.

There is no question that the ten percenters are a valuable tool for us to be able to communicate not only with our own constituents but with the country as a whole. They should be, and in a lot of cases have been, a tool to educate, to share information with the general public on issues that are in the public domain currently.

It is additionally important to note, and this is the point I wanted to make in my speech, that the Liberal Party has been publicly stating that it wants to stop the regrouping and not allow the ten percenters to be sent by individual members or by party leaders to ridings other than their own.

I think that ignores the reality of political parties in this country having regional areas in which they do not have any representatives. Those areas would in effect be deprived of the arguments, the issues and the policies of the party that had no representation in those areas.

Therefore I think it is important to continue that ability. My argument is very strong. We have all sorts of laws that restrict what one can say in terms of liable. I think we have to remember that and put some parameters in place.

It is my understanding, and I intend to do more research on this, that the Ontario government has a mail-out program for their members who sit in that legislature but there are restrictions on what the content can be.

I think we need to look at that idea as well. I hope that would be another recommendation coming from the procedure and House affairs committee when it reviews this issue of privilege.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of points. I concur with the member's view of the member for Mount Royal. I have spoken with that member on a number of important issues. I have worked with him on committee. For anyone to infer in any fashion that that individual is anti-Semitic is just so outrageous and ludicrous that it is beyond belief.

I just wanted to reaffirm for the record my view of that member and the high regard I hold him in.

Beyond that, on the issue of ten percenters and the value of ten percenters, in my case I refer to those as my report card to the constituents I represent. I send them these tidbits of information about what we are doing in the House because, irrespective of the bubble we live in here, the people back home many times do not know what we are doing. I oftentimes leave a space for them to mail back to me their concerns and their points.

On occasion they disagree with me. I know that is hard to believe, but it does happen. However, that allows me to generate the debate. Once my ten percenters have gone to my community, the next day or so when I am home, I have three, four or five people who actually stop me and refer to them.

To open that dialogue and keep it continuing with the people we represent, I believe, is very important.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I thoroughly agree with my colleague from Hamilton that they are a very useful tool. He has added another dimension to these by giving his constituents the ability to respond.

I think from time to time we all do that. We have a mail-back to see whether they agree with the position we have taken in the ten percenter and give us additional feedback perhaps on points that we have not covered. I think it is extremely important that we keep this program going.

However, we have to curtail its abuse, and I think it is possible to do that.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. It is an important discussion, and I am very pleased to stand in support of the Speaker's ruling today on the question of privilege on behalf of my colleague, the member for Mount Royal, because I also view it as a question of privilege for myself.

I would have hoped, and I would have expected, a government, my government, the Government of Canada, to have stood here this afternoon and, after the Speaker's ruling, to disavow the flyer that had gone out, to make an effort to bring people together, to apologize, which I would agree is not sufficient, rather than to demonize, to divide, to continue to draw a wedge between Canadians, and to present information that it knows to be misleading and not factual over and over again and repeat it over and over again as though repeating it frequently will make it a truth.

I want to put a few things on the record. It is important to note that it was a Liberal government in Canada that, on November 29, 1947, helped to vote the state of Israel into being. Canadian support for Israel's right to exist in peace and security has been a constant in Canadian foreign policy ever since.

There have been times, no doubt, when reasonable people could disagree with the policies or actions of an Israeli government. After all, we all know that in Israel itself there has always been opposition and disagreement with the government of the day. That goes with living in a democracy.

Who knows? If Conservative backbenchers were allowed to think for themselves or deviate from script, they might occasionally be critical of an Israeli government, or of their own, without being thought anti-Semitic or anti-Conservative.

However, neither in Israel nor in Canada has there ever been any question about Israel's right to a secure existence.

In the 61 years since the creation of the state of Israel, 11 people have occupied the office of Prime Minister of Canada and none, until now, has ever sought to turn that broad support for Israel into an issue of partisan politics. However, the current government and the current Prime Minister try to govern on the principle of divide and conquer, divide and rule. In this case, they are doing it by singling out Canadian Jews for a special message and it is a message that, I would submit, is based on deception, innuendo, half-truths and non-truths.

For the current government, such conduct seems to be instinctive. However, I would submit again that it is not the Canadian way. A government that sees nothing wrong with a ten percenter targeting Canadian Jews now will see nothing wrong with targeting Sikhs or Muslims or Serbs or Bosnians tomorrow.

The manipulation of religious or ethnic minorities for short-term political gain, I would submit again, is a recipe for long-term disaster. A country like ours becomes ungovernable when a government seeks to mobilize or divide people on the basis of their culture and their religion.

In this particular case, a ten percenter targeted at Jews or any other minority attempts to turn them into political fodder and the communities in which they live into someone else's battleground.

As a Canadian Jew, I would say that we are quite capable of managing our own disagreements without the interference of the national government or any political party.

I want to reference the ten percenters which the parliamentary secretary spoke about. He talked about other parties submitting ten percenters.

I think it is important that we all realize that 69% of the ten percenters that go out from this House are sent out by the party opposite, most into ridings that it does not hold; 11% are sent out by the New Democratic Party; and 13% by the official opposition.

These ten percenters, as well, were targeted into the very ridings that the strongest advocates for good Canada-Israel relations live in.

The loudest voices against anti-Semitism are those individuals whose ridings were targeted. The flyers were sent to denigrate the members and denigrate their records and reputation. It is reprehensible. Moreover, singling out Jews and Jewish communities in this way is appalling, demeaning and potentially dangerous. It is not flattering. It does not confer special status, yet the party opposite has no scruples about playing off Jews, one against another, or playing one group of Canadians against another, or singling out Jews for special attention and treatment. I think Jews with any historical memory ought to be very nervous when a government starts targeting them for special treatment or special messages. We have been there before and we are in very dangerous territory.

Historically, Jews have been a marginalized, vulnerable, identifiable cultural group. The government should not be in the business of separating them or, indeed, any minority of Canadians from the general citizenry and targeting them for its own security are not and should not be partisan issues. Yet, through these flyers, that is what the government is offering: an appeal to fear that can only poison the wells within the Jewish community and between the Jewish community and the wider community of Canadians.

I want to read into the record, and perhaps it has been done before I was in the House this afternoon, the comments made by my leader, the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, at a Canadian Jewish Congress meeting. He said:

My party will never claim to be the only genuine defenders of Israel in Canadian politics, because I don't want my party to be alone in the defense of Israel, I want all parties to defend Israel

I referenced this before in a statement I made in the House the other day. Many of us will have seen in films or in documentaries that very famous exchange between Senator Joe McCarthy and Joe Welch who was chief counsel for the army in the so-called Army versus McCarthy hearings. Wanting to discredit Welch, McCarthy tried to discredit a young lawyer in Welch's firm. Welch responded with words that have resonated down through the intervening years and they are words that might be addressed to this government. He said:

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.

Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

I would submit that if the Conservatives cannot see the value of having all parties standing together in support of Israel, I would say that perhaps their interests lie outside the Jewish community of Canada. Dividing a wedge among us is not the way to govern this country.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre for a very fine presentation, and my good friend from Mount Royal with respect to the interventions he made.

I want to read into the record a couple of things. I know a number of papers have been read into the record but a recent editorial in the Toronto Star read as follows:

Through a deliberate twisting of the facts, the flyers suggested that the Liberals are anti-Semites.

It goes on to say:

What is really grating about these vile flyers is that they were delivered at taxpayers' expense....

A third quote is as follows:

[The Prime Minister] and his party should repudiate the flyers and apologize for having distributed them.

I think my friends opposite need to reflect on what has happened. I know we all get engaged in partisan exchange and in very vigorous political fights. As somebody who has been through a few of those myself and having delivered a couple of blows, some of them unfair, over 30 years, I think we would all say that there are times and moments when we might have wished that we had not said something that we had said.

I think this is a time for all of us to reflect on a couple of things. The first is the issue of substance before us, that is to say the content of the leaflet that was distributed. I find that I am in agreement with the comments made by the Toronto Star with respect to the document. It is vile and it associates the Liberal Party with anti-Semitism.

When we come to understand a little better the history and meaning of that terrible phenomenon in world history, we need to understand how deeply wrong it is for a political party to accuse another political party of hosting or encouraging any such views. To put it in more accurate terms, anti-Semitism is Jew hatred and the suggestion that members of the Liberal Party engage in that kind of activity is, frankly, nauseating.

The second is the question of these flyers. I am happy to engage in a discussion with my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh with respect to the issue of what we should do about the ten percenters, but if anybody thinks that this can be allowed to continue at taxpayer expense, they are sadly mistaken.