Michael Ignatieff is complaining that every time Stephen Harper gets near a tank, helicopter or a destroyer, he can't resist firing at the Liberals. This time, in using earthquake-ravaged Haiti as the backdrop, the Prime Minister took partisanship too far, he says.
On a two-day trip to Haiti to survey relief efforts, Mr. Harper took a shot at the Liberals, insisting they never understood how Canada needs "hard power" military equipment like the huge C-17 cargo planes that allowed the Forces to land major relief shipments two days after the January earthquake.
"Every time Mr. Harper gets within a mile of Canadian military equipment, he takes a swipe at the Liberal Party. It's like Pavlov's dog," Mr. Ignatieff told reporters in Ottawa today. "A prime minister should be the prime minister of all Canadians. It's inappropriate to use Haiti, to use a Canadian military base, to make an attack on a political party."
Canadians and all political parties came together to support efforts to help Haiti, so it's the wrong stage for the Prime Minister to use the disaster for partisan attacks, he said. "But that's the way he is," the Liberal Leader added.
Mr. Ignatieff and the Liberals have been trying hard to portray Mr. Harper as "hyper-partisan," especially since the Prime Minister's move in December to prorogue Parliament till March.
The Liberal Leader's scrum with reporters was also a chance to take a whack at foreign journalists who have been criticizing Vancouver's hosting of the Olympics - he quoted Spiro Agnew in calling them "nattering nabobs of negativism" and suggested the foreign reporters have failed to get out of the press centre.
He did, however, criticize Olympic organizers for failing to include enough French in the Games, notably at the opening ceremonies, and suggested that VANOC follow the lead of athletes like Western-Canadian medalists Jennifer Heil and Maëlle Ricker, who were able to answer questions in French.
And while he complained about the venue for Mr. Harper's partisan attack from Haiti, the Liberal Leader had no trouble taking issue with a Conservative foreign-policy pronouncement: junior foreign minister Peter Kent's assertion that Canada views an attack on Israel as an attack on itself.
Mr. Kent's assertion was clearly designed to be a reassurance about Canada's commitment to Israel - and presumably to hearten Israel's supporters here. The problem is that Mr. Kent wasn't willing to explain what it means.
The phrase evoked the common-defence clause of military treaties like NATO's, which provide that all countries will go to war if one ally is attacked.
"We regard the situation in Iran with the greatest concern. But Mr. Kent conjured up visions of us landing troops on Haifa beach. And was just a little puzzled," Mr. Ignatieff said.
"Where does that come from? Who's making the foreign-policy of Canada?"
(Photo: Pawel Dwulit/The Canadian Press)
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Update Mr. Harper's office responded this afternoon by saying they'd obviously hit a nerve. The Prime Minister was merely noting how the C-17s made delivering aid easier, said Sara MacIntyre, Mr. Harper's spokeswoman.
"He's obviously over-sensitive on this issue as it was his Liberal Party and the Liberal government that oversaw the decade of darkness," she said, referring to former general Rick Hillier's phrase for the military-budget cuts of the 1990s.