Opposition calls on Tories to release report by Khan

Last Updated: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 | 9:53 PM ET

CBC News

Opposition MPs have attacked the Conservative government for refusing to release a report on the Middle East written by a former Liberal who recently joined the Tory ranks.

MP Wajid Khan was sitting as a Liberal when he agreed in the summer of 2006 to act as a special adviser on Mideast to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Khan promised at the time that his report would be available to all political parties, promising it would be "unbiased and freestanding."

Wajid Khan, then a Liberal MP, is seen at a meeting with members of the Pakistani community in Toronto in October 2005.
(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Khan, who represents the Ontario riding of Mississauga-Streetsville, jumped to the Conservatives last week. The prime minister's office has since said his report would not be released to the public, saying that would make Khan a pundit and not an adviser.

MP Byron Wilfert, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, accused Khan of breaking his promise and the Conservatives of breaking an election pledge to run an open and transparent government.

"I can't fathom what credentials he had initially to make him an adviser. But if the prime minister felt that he had those credentials then why does he not now feel that it's worthy to release a report by Khan," Wilfert said Tuesday.

"There is nothing that I can think of that would be so sensitive to national security purposes that it wouldn't be released."

New Democrat MP Peter Stoffer said the fact the report won't be released casts a shadow over Khan's work.

"There is either nothing in there and it has just become a travel guide to the best hotels and restaurants, or there is not much of a report at all and probably one wasn't done."

When asked by CBC News in September about his role, Khan would only say he was meeting with a "variety of people and officials" in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Khan also visited Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. But the government had refused to say who he met, what he learned and what it cost taxpayers.

After repeated requests by CBC News, the Department of Foreign Affairs promised Tuesday night to publish Khan's travel expenses.

Khan, a Muslim and former pilot and officer in Pakistan's military, is a successful car dealer in the Toronto area. He said he was moved to offer his help to Harper after police moved to end an alleged terrorist plot in Toronto.

But it wasn't until August, when Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah were at war and the Conservatives were under pressure for their support for Israel, that Harper made Khan an adviser.

Khan previously explained that he got the assignment because he has "some expertise, I have contacts and I have intel."