Acrimony, recriminations in Mount Royal riding battle
Liberals cry foul over statements made on Conservative flyers
The Liberal camp in the Mount Royal riding is crying foul after Conservative flyers mailed to voters made suggestions that the Liberals say are full of serious misrepresentations.
That’s just one example of mounting tensions between the sparring parties — and it’s no wonder. The battle for a seat the Conservatives view as possibly their best chance to gain a foothold on the island of Montreal has been riddled with acrimony and recriminations, and the Liberal and Conservative candidates — longtime political adversaries — are embroiled in what has disintegrated into a downright noxious campaign.
Stakes are high in a riding that has voted Liberal for the last 75 years but is viewed as winnable by the Conservatives, largely because of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s strong support for Israel. About one- third of households in the riding are Jewish.
This week, retiring Liberal MP Irwin Cotler made public a long letter refuting the idea that he supports the Conservative party leader on the issue of terrorism, as suggested on a postcard titled “Irwin Cotler knows which leader is serious about fighting terrorism.”
But Conservative candidate Robert Libman insists the flyer was accurate and fair, and he’s not backing down from his contention that Cotler clearly questioned his own party’s leadership. The quote from Cotler, in Maclean’s magazine, says: “When the party voted against the multilateral mission ( against ISIS), Harper was playing the adult in the room regarding fighting terrorism.”
“He can try to spin it in any way he wants. He made that statement, which is backed up by his actions and his House of Commons vote, so all they’re trying to do now is damage control,” Libman said in an interview. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Irwin Cotler, which is why I feel his quote is so significant,” Libman said. “If a Liberal party icon like Irwin Cotler is identifying the difference between Harper’s leadership and ( Justin) Trudeau’s leadership on that issue and he votes against his party on that issue, it’s something voters have to understand.”
In a meeting at Liberal candidate Anthony Housefather’s headquarters in Mount Royal, Cotler was livid, feeling that his reputation was, once again, being exploited by the Conservatives in the riding. In 2009, the Speaker of the House ruled that the Conservatives may have damaged Cotler’s reputation and credibility by sending flyers to Montreal- area ridings that suggested the Liberal party was antiSemitic.
And now, Cotler says, he is “disappointed, but regrettably not
surprised” that similar tactics have been employed.
“Libman is uninformed and thereby misleading about what I said, the positions I took and my rather comprehensive interventions and writings on this issue,” Cotler said, adding he’s been a strong and persistent critic of Harper’s anti- terrorism law, Bill C- 51.
“I was not favouring Harper’s approach — I was against it.”
Côte- St- Luc city councillor Dida Berku weighed in on the matter, saying in a statement it was “a disgrace to dishonour and attack the reputation of Irwin Cotler by falsely inferring that he supports Harper for prime minister.”
And now Housefather is enraged about a flyer he contends has been made to look like it is from the Liberals, in which he is quoted as saying: “It would be good to have an
embassy in Iran.”
He maintains it was a fragment of a longer debate in which he said that if Iran improved its humanrights record, stopped trying to become a nuclear power and stopped its demonization of Israel, it would be good to have an embassy there “to protect our citizens who are going to Iran.”
To highlight the quote without the caveats, he said, “is a complete misrepresentation.”
Libman says he has Housefather’s quote about an embassy in Iran on tape.
“He’s been lying and misleading voters in our riding about issues like Iran and ISIS and Israel,” he said, adding he believes it would be “naive” to reopen an embassy in Iran, which he equates with the “politics of appeasement.”
“There are fundamental dif- ferences between our party’s approach to many of these issues and the Liberals’ approach to many of these issues,” Libman said. “That’s what has created some of the most heated rhetoric in the campaign.”
He agrees the flyers highlight controversial issues, but said they were mailed “to correct the nonsense and misinformation ( Housefather) is spewing out there.”
For his part, Housefather says he has never witnessed anything like this negativity, and it shocks him because he has been trying to run a positive campaign that focuses only on why people should vote for him.
“The attempt to pretend Cotler endorses ( Harper) frankly shocks my consciousness.”
Libman says every campaign gets heated and even nasty, but he feels his opponents “have been mudslinging and cheap.”
Housefather and Libman have a storied history dating back to the days of the municipal mergers. They served together on Côte-StLuc city council, with Libman as the mayor back then, and pledged to lead demerger movements. But when Libman defected in support of staying in the megacity, Housefather became his rival by leading the charge to demerge.
That’s not the only reason Mount Royal has become a cutthroat campaign. Although the polls show the Liberals with a lead there, Housefather and Libman acknowledge it’s a close race. Both say they are confident but need to get the vote out on Monday to win.
There’s 75 years of history on the line — and that’s a lot of pressure. Harper launched his campaign there, and Libman acknowledged it’s important to the party to win the riding.
“We’re running a very mature, serious campaign and they’re having a lot of trouble with it because they feel the pressure of these 75 years weighing on their shoulders,” he said. Housefather sees it differently. “I have not attacked the Conservatives or misrepresented anything they said,” he said.
He has only one explanation for what he believes are unseemly tactics from his opponents: “I think they’re becoming desperate.”
Libman is uninformed and thereby misleading about what I said. RETIRING LIBERAL MP IRWIN COTL ER