Canada's Libs: not ready for prime time

By Clarice Feldman

Shortly after the selection of Stephane Dion as party captain, the Canadian Liberal Party looks like it's crashing on the shoals.

In the first place, it appears that Dion holds dual citizenship (Canadian and French) and is unwilling to make his allegiance to Canada manifest by giving up his French citizenship.

In the second place, it appears his followers have engaged in naked anti-Semitism, probably offending those Jews who haven't had the wit to shift over to Harper and the conservatives.

Bob Rae was the target of anti-Semitic attacks during the Liberal leadership contest, motivated at least in part by the fact that his wife is Jewish.

Sources close to Rae say that his wife, Arlene Perly Rae, was approached during last weekend's convention by a delegate who didn't realize she was the candidate's wife. The delegate told her not to vote for Rae "because his wife is Jewish."

Perly Rae stonily informed the delegate that she was the wife in question. The delegate beat a hasty retreat.

The incident might have been shrugged off if it had been an isolated event. But Rae team insiders contend it was part of a larger pattern of anti-Semitic smears on Rae, who finished third.

A flyer was circulated electronically among convention delegates denouncing Rae for having once delivered a speech to the Jewish National Fund, a group the flyer said was complicit in "war crimes and ethnic cleansing."

"Rae's wife is a vice-president of the CJC (Canadian Jewish Congress), a lobby group which supports Israeli apartheid," said the flyer in bold letters superimposed over a close-up of Rae's face.

"Bob Rae supports Israeli apartheid. Don't elect a leader who supports apartheid."

The Canadian Jewish Congress has condemned the flyer and blamed Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation for circulating it.