12-01-06, 16:09
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In the news:
Quote:
January 12, 2006
Soldiers are mad as hell
Want Liberals to apologize for ad gaffe
By DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN
Second World War veteran Peter Germaniuk poses for a photograph with an early photo of himself from when he was in the navy, at his Calmar home yesterday. (Walter Tychnowicz, SUN)
Serving soldiers and battle-hardened vets dropped a bomb on the Liberal election campaign yesterday, blasting an unaired attack ad suggesting Conservatives want to impose martial law on Canadian city streets.
"First thing I felt like doing when I saw (the ad) on the news was throwing up," said Peter Germaniuk, 81, a Second World War vet from Calmar.
"Then I felt like kicking the s--t out of someone. Whoever put that ad together is full of crap. The Liberals should apologize to the people of Canada for being so bloody stupid."
The ad, commissioned by the Liberal campaign but never aired, appeared on the party's website. The ad opens with a soundtrack of martial drumbeats and a blurry image of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's face.
"Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities," says the narrator.
"Canadian cities. Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up. Choose your Canada."
The Conservative platform actually calls for 100 regular troops and 400 reservists to be based in major Canadian cities as a hedge against emergencies such as natural disasters.
Locally, many military people interpreted the ads as an attack on the military itself.
"I am LIVID with RAGE," reads an e-mail from a soldier at the Edmonton Garrison, who asked not to be named.
"I am a soldier, living in a large population centre ... and I cannot believe the audacity of the Liberals who are suggesting that I am somehow going to be a 'THREAT' to that very city I live in with my own family!"
"It's ridiculous," said Miles Daigneault, 80, another Second World War vet.
He said the tone of the ad reminded him of Ottawa's imposition of martial law in Quebec during the 1970 FLQ crisis.
"Are they really saying the Conservatives would impose the War Measures Act?"
Edmonton Police Const. Shane Brennan, who served with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan and was wounded in the 2002 friendly-fire incident, called the ad the "craziest thing" he'd seen in the campaign.
"I'm trying to keep a straight face here," he said.
"It's a complete fantasy. Looks to me like (the Liberals) are getting desperate."
The controversy derailed a planned Liberal platform launch at the campaign office of Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan.
Instead of questions about the platform, McLellan found herself hammered by the press over the ad.
"That ad was not intended to run. It was not approved by the prime minister," she said. "It was not intended as a comment on our outstanding armed forces."
But McLellan did point out that the Conservatives were the first to go negative in the campaign.
She cited a mailout authorized by her Conservative challenger Laurie Hawn, which accused the Liberals of distributing envelopes full of cash to their friends.
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