Poilievre Crosses Line - Must Apologize and Retract Slur Against Dion, Liberals and Canadians

OTTAWA - Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre must apologize for and immediately retract his claims that "extremist groups" are influencing the Liberal Party of Canada and its leader, Stéphane Dion, Liberal MPs Navdeep Bains and Omar Alghabra said today.

"Mr. Poilievre has taken the debate on two unused, controversial clauses in the Anti-terrorism Act to a new low by stating that there are people within our party that are influencing us to oppose those measures," said Mr. Bains. "This is not just an attack on myself and the Liberal Party but on all Canadians who support us."

Added Mr. Alghabra: "Mr. Poilievre must publicly apologize for this slanderous attack and retract any and all inference that Liberals and Mr. Dion are being influenced to scrap anti-terrorism measures."

Mr. Poilievre said in a Feb. 22, 2007, interview on CFRA Radio in Ottawa:

"Now we know that a lot of extremist groups and people with some very hard left wing views have advocated for a long time that these (anti-terrorism) provisions should be scrapped. Now a lot of those people supported Stéphane Dion in the leadership. A lot of them are in Stéphane Dion's caucus. For example, there are members of Stéphane Dion's Liberal caucus who want to legalize Hezbollah, which is a terrorist organization from south Lebanon. There are people in the Liberal caucus that want to shut down the investigation into the Air India terrorist attack, which is the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history. And up until recently, the former Liberal government was blocking the very anti-terror-the very RCMP investigation and hearings into that Air India investigation. So, we know there are extremist elements in the Liberal party."

When specifically asked if he thinks Mr. Bains is an "extremist," Mr. Poilievre replied:

"I don't comment on individuals but what I would say is we know there is a extremist element in the Liberal party, generally, that has been very vocal in opposing measures that are designed to combat terrorism. And it would seem that Mr. Dion has collapsed under the pressure from those groups."

"Mr. Poilievre's outrageous statements are symptomatic of the unsubstantiated smear campaign that Prime Minister Stephen Harper started, and that his caucus, with the help of certain media outlets, has continued to perpetuate," said Mr. Alghabra.

"This mean-spirited government's approach to this debate has been nothing short of disgraceful," added Mr. Bains. "The Liberal Party has a proud history of aiming to protect Canada's security while preserving the principles of freedom and human rights entrenched in the Charter. For this Conservative party to now come in and try to taint that reputation is not acceptable, and I will continue to ask this Prime Minister for an apology on behalf of myself, my family and all Canadians."