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Posted on 06/11/2006 6:39:09 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
WINNIPEG - The Liberal leadership race lost its veneer of civility Saturday as the 11 contenders locked horns over Afghanistan and campaign financing and began sharpening their attacks on the perceived front-runner, Michael Ignatieff.
Toronto MP Joe Volpe, struggling to recover from a kiddie campaign donation controversy, heralded the more aggressive tone at a news conference just hours before the first official all-candidates' debate.
He announced that he will disclose all donations to his campaign in future as they are received and challenged his rivals to do the same or "bow out of the race."
Volpe cast himself as the victim of a "smear" campaign and lashed back at Ignatieff for suggesting the donation scandal has "caused reputational damage" to the party.
"I don't need to take lessons about how to serve the party from anybody," Volpe snapped, contrasting his veteran service to the party with Ignatieff's newcomer status.
Volpe became mired in controversy after it was revealed that he had accepted $108,000 in donations from 20 former and current executives at pharmaceutical giant Apotex Inc., their wives and children, including 11-year-old twins. He eventually returned $27,000 from five children under the age of 18.
Volpe said call for donation disclosures Saturday was aimed at "clearing the air" on the controversy. But other contenders were clearly miffed that his news conference refocussed attention on a matter that has thrown an ethical cloud over the entire party.
"I think that it's unfortunate that this controversy is consuming what is otherwise a very positive leadership race," Scott Brison, the sole Atlantic MP in the race, told reporters on his way into the debate.
Ken Dryden, Toronto MP and hockey legend, said the donation controversy is "a setback" to the party's efforts to regain public trust in the wake of the sponsorship scandal.
For his part, Ignatieff refused to repeat his criticism of the kiddie donations. And he praised Volpe's idea of speedily disclosing all donations.
But that civility wasn't reciprocated during the debate.
Volpe was, again, the most pointed in his attacks on Ignatieff, accusing him of siding with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper in opposition to the Kyoto climate change accord and in support of extending the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan.
Afterward, Volpe told reporters that Ignatieff is "very Republican-minded."
But other contenders also took more gentle shots at Ignatieff. Bob Rae, former NDP premier of Ontario, praised the Liberals for seeing Kyoto as "an opportunity, not a liability," as Ignatieff has dubbed it.
Ignatieff tried to clarify that he supports Kyoto but believes the party must go beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions and come up with practical policies to reduce pollution.
"We've got to go into the next election with something that's not just Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto, important and fundamental as that is," he said.
But it was Afghanistan which exposed the deepest divisions among the 11 contenders and which is proving to be the issue on which Ignatieff is most vulnerable.
Ignatieff and Brison voted in favour of a government motion last month to extend the Afghanistan mission to 2009. All other contenders were opposed, furious that Harper allowed Parliament only six hours to debate the matter.
Ignatieff explained that he couldn't "in good conscience" oppose the motion when, that very day in Afghanistan, Capt. Nichola Goddard became the first Canadian female soldier killed in combat.
"Canada is a serious country. If you ask us to do something hard and difficult, we will do it. We should stay there until we get the job done and return with honour," he said to tepid applause from about 500 Liberals.
He said those who would rather send Canadian troops to war-torn Sudan are posing "a false choice," arguing that Canada needs a "combat-ready military" that can deploy on more than one mission at a time.
Ignatieff's remarks drew a strong rebuff from Rae, his onetime university roommate and lifelong friend.
"I disagree quite profoundly with Michael on this issue," Rae said, adding that "it's most unfair" to suggest that "if you vote against the resolution you are not supportive of Canadian troops overseas."
Rae said he supports the troops completing their current mission, which had been scheduled to end in 2007. Beyond that, however, he said: "The risk that we run by turning ourselves into a combat force that's engaged in counter-insurgency . . . is that we will in fact lose our way as peacekeepers."
Toronto MP Maurizio Bevilacqua used the Afghanistan issue to contend that Canada must have "an independent foreign policy" and raised the example of former prime minister Jean Chretien's decision to stay out of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
"Stephen Harper would have gone to Iraq. (President) George Bush did go to Iraq," Bevilacqua said, leaving unsaid the fact that Ignatieff, then a Harvard academic, also supported the Iraq war.
Brison said he supported extension of the Afghanistan mission because he feared, if Parliament had voted against Harper's "cynical" motion, that the headline the next day in the New York Times would have read: "Canadian Parliament withdraws support for the Afghan mission."
But Toronto lawyer Martha Hall Findlay shot back: "We do not establish our foreign policy in this country, with all due respect, because we're afraid of what the headline in the New York Times will be."
Apart from Afghanistan, the debate was tame, with few disagreements and plenty of platitudes.
At one point while the candidates were supposed to be addressing the thorny question of equalization for have-not provinces, former minister Stephane Dion appeared to lose patience with the vacuity of the answers.
"This is a debate," he observed. "Do you have an idea here? . . . I can tell you that so far no one has even expressed an opinion."
Dion used the debate to unveil his policy to end child poverty. Rather than cut the GST by one percentage point as the Harper government plans, Dion said he would invest $4 billion into the National Child Benefit.
Others participating in the debate were former Ontario education minister Gerard Kennedy, Vancouver MP Hedy Fry and Toronto MP Carolyn Bennett.
© The Canadian Press 2006
Expect a lot of vacuous answers from some of these guys - after all, they are Liberals! The same party whose brilliant answer to the threat of separation was to hand out free flags.
And there's an interesting split developing in the party over the Afghanistan mission.
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Might ought to just stand back, and let them have at it.
I hate when these guys bash each other -- that's OUR job... ;)
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