Irwin Cotler

[Points of Order, December 1st, 2009]

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, the member repeats the—

[Points of Order, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order in relation to a statement made by the member for Portage—Lisgar, which in turn related to your ruling on finding a prima facie breach of privilege with respect to the misleading flyer that had been sent to my constituency and others, and which statement made in question period warrants a correction for the parliamentary record and the facts.

The member for Portage—Lisgar said that the Liberal Party and the member for Mount Royal misled this House in stating that the Israeli government had asked the Canadian government to stay in Durban. The member for Portage--Lisgar went on to quote Alan Baker, whom she claimed headed the Israeli delegation in Durban, and that he had asked the Canadian government to leave.

For the record, the facts are as follows:

First, Mr. Baker did not head the Israeli delegation at Durban. The person who headed the delegation was Rabbi Michael Melchior, then a deputy foreign minister of Israel, who publicly commended the Canadian government for staying in Durban to combat the anti-Semitism there. That is a matter of public record and that can be verified.

Second, the member for Vancouver Centre, who headed the Canadian delegation, has said that she was never contacted by Mr. Baker and never was asked to leave Durban.

Third, the final thing and the important point here is that the Canadian delegation at Durban, of which I was a member, made its own independent decision to stay and not to leave for the following reasons.

We did not willingly participate, as the member for Portage—Lisgar implied today, in the anti-Semitic Durban. We stayed willingly to combat the anti-Semitism in Durban. This was publicly commended by the Israeli government.

I also want to add again for the record, as I stated in my submissions, because it keeps getting misrepresented, we were not only asked by the Israeli government to remain, but we were asked by other governments and NGOs to remain, including Canadian NGOs at Durban.

Therefore, I would ask the member for Portage—Lisgar to publicly apologize to the House--

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

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.

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the member for Nepean—Carleton speaks about his party's position on the Middle East. He argues that it is more favourable than that of the Liberal Party. He is entitled to that view. That is not the issue before this House. That is not the ruling of the Speaker finding a prima facie breach of privilege.

The issue before this House, and the member for Nepean—Carleton never referenced it at all, is the use and abuse of ten percenters targeting identifiable religious minorities and using misleading, false, pernicious and slanderous content in that ten percenter, having the effect, as the Speaker found in his ruling, of damaging the reputation, the credibility and the standing of a member of this House.

That is what we are debating. That is what the Conservatives are ignoring. That is how they are changing the channel. They are in fact continuing to abuse this House, to abuse the processes of the breach of privilege debate in order to bring in misleading and irrelevant references to debates on the Middle East.

We are not debating the Middle East. I am prepared to do that any time outside this chamber.

We are talking about false, misleading, pernicious, slanderous ten percenters targeting a community and prejudicially affecting a party, the Liberal Party, and each and all of its members. That is what the issue is all about and that is where the issue of facts comes in.

False, pernicious, misleading, defamatory statements were made in that flyer. The Conservatives cannot escape it. It is there on its face. The Speaker made a ruling. I would like the hon. member for Nepean—Carleton to acknowledge that.

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the issue is not the positions taken on matters relating to Israel and the Jewish community. I do not mind if the Conservative Party sets forth the positive positions that it has taken with respect to Israel and the Middle East. I do not mind if it wants to take credit for walking out of Durban II. I might add parenthetically that our party supported that action, and supported that publicly.

That is not the point. The point is that rather than make truthful statements about one's own party record, one is making malicious, false and slanderous statements about another party's record and the members of that party. It is not only that. What it really gets down to is the issue of the use and abuse of ten percenters, using public funds and targeting a Jewish community to make these false and misleading and slanderous statements.

That is what the issue is and that is why the Speaker found a prima facie breach of privilege, because the ten percenter also tended to prejudice the work of the member in his riding and thereby diminished his reputation and standing. Those are the Speaker's criteria. That is what we should be debating as applied to the facts, and not positions on the Middle East, which changes channel and misleads the public once again. They should apologize for their statements rather than continue to mislead the House.

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker. I will continue with what was written by my wife in the op ed:

But the facts are: [the member for Mount Royal], along with representatives of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith, remained at Durban 1 at the request of the Israeli and other governments to combat a poisoned atmosphere that descended into vitriol and hate.

Taking this matter out of context, as the hon. member did, let me repeat so that there will be no ambiguity and so that he does not misrepresent this again. All governments went to Durban because it was the first anti-racism conference of the 21st century, and we went there with the hope and with the view of condemning racism.

However, that conference turned into a conference of racism against Israel and the Jews. That is when we stood up, that was when we were asked to remain, and that is what we did. We were praised for having been the party that most condemned anti-Semitism at that Durban 1 conference.

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

I would like to be able to conclude without being—

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

The clear inference is to associate the Liberal Party with anti-Semitism. Let me just quote from what my wife wrote on this issue in response to that:

—on the "Jewish" values issue, the flyer is a series of false and arguably slanderous statements....The flyer accuses the Liberals of "willingly participating in the overtly anti-Semitic Durban 1 [conference in 2001]," thereby associating the Liberals -- and my husband -- with support for anti-Semitism. That is condemnable on its own.

That is condemnable on its own, but the facts are—

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to say this for the hon. member. If the flyer had condemned Durban 1 as being anti-Semitic, I would have no problem. Indeed, as I have said elsewhere in the House, I have written and spoken as much about that as any member of Parliament in any parliamentary forum in the world. However, the calumny is that in a flyer, which compares the positions of Liberals and Conservatives, it specifically says that the Liberals willingly participated in the anti-Semitic Durban I.

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

I did not say that.