PM attacked detainee transfer critics: Rae
Last Updated: Monday, November 30, 2009 | 9:52 PM ET
CBC News
Bob Rae slammed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for suggesting that the Liberals are disparaging Canadian soldiers by raising questions about the Afghan detainee affair. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae slammed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his “reprehensible” suggestion that the Liberals are disparaging Canadian soldiers by raising questions about the Afghan detainee affair.
Rae told reporters that the issue is not about questioning the conduct of Canadian troops, but instead probing the actions of the Tories.
Rae said to argue that some political parties are stronger supporters of the Canadian military than others is “reprehensible" and to suggest that raising questions over the Afghan detainee issue is "somewhat unpatriotic, is frankly beyond the pale.”
“To play that card the way he has played it, is I think, grossly unfair,” said Rae, who was joined by Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh. “And to suggest that in any question that’s been posed in the House of Commons or in any comment that’s been made — that somehow this is about the conduct of our troops — it’s just completely false.”
Rae spoke following comments made by Harper over the weekend in Trinidad and Tobago aboard the Canadian naval vessel HMCS Quebec.
Harper said that living in a time "when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you."
Opposition parties have called for a public inquiry following the testimony of Richard Colvin, a former senior diplomat with Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
Colvin alleged that prisoners were turned over to Afghanistan prison officials by the Canadian military in 2006-07 despite his warnings to Canadian officials that they would be tortured.
The Tories have denied the claims and questioned the credibility of Colvin’s accusations.
