Vaughan
October 09, 2008 11:42 AM
Keely Grasser
Conservative candidate Richard Lorello says an announcement of a $12.5 million redress agreement for Italian-Canadians is evidence of the Liberals’ “desperation and an attempt to buy votes”.
But Liberal incumbent Maurizio Bevilacqua says that’s not true and that statement shows Mr. Lorello’s lack of respect for the Italian community.
The two are responding to a Sept. 27 campaign pledge by the Liberals that they would “restore” the $12.5- million agreement to redress the internment of some Italian-Canadians during World War II.
In the last several years, an effort has been made to compensate for these actions.
In Paul Martin’s 2005 budget, the government committed $25 million over three years to ethno-cultural groups impacted by wartime measures.
A 2005 agreement-in-principle proposed the Italian-Canadian community receive $2.5 million.
Later that year, Mr. Bevilacqua said an additional $10 million was added to the sum.
However, Mr. Lorello said he can’t find record of that pledge being any more than a Liberal campaign promise leading up to the 2006 federal election.
But Mr. Bevilacqua provided The Citizen a statement from former finance minister Ralph Goodale, in which the minister said that MP Raymond Chan, who was responsible for settlement negotiations between groups and organi zations and the government, came back to him in fall 2005 with a request to up the agreement to $12.5 million.
Mr. Goodale said the proposal was accepted and was properly “booked”.
The Liberals say the Tories cancelled this agreement.
This past June, Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity, issued a release stating the Italian-Canadian community would receive $5 million in grants for commemorative and education program purposes, recognizing their internment experience.
And then in September, the Liberals released their pledge, saying Mr. Kenney had “slashed” their agreement and leader Stephane Dion asserted that the Tories’ “take-it-or-leave-it approach to dealing with this matter of social injustice is shocking ... equally shocking is the misinformation Mr. Kenney has been spreading regarding this issue. He has woven a web of fairy tales as a way to justify the cancellation of this funding.”
Mr. Lorello questioned why “two weeks before the election, Mr. Dion comes out with this vote-buying exercise.”
He said he believes the Liberals’ new announcement is “kind of irresponsible. It’s kind of bad politics.”
He questioned why the Italian-Canadian community would receive more under the Liberals’ pledge than the Chinese-Canadian or Ukraine-Canadian communities received under other redress agreements. He said that’s why he thinks it’s an example of the Grits trying to buy Italian-Canadian votes.
“I think he’s (Lorello) making a major assuption ... that the Italian community is up for sale and I don’t think the Italian-Canada community is up for sale,” Mr. Bevilacqua retorted. “For Mr. Lorello to imply that tells me that he shows lack of respect, quite frankly, to the Italian-Canadian community.”
Mr. Lorello said that he’s of Italian heritage and he’ll continue to work on the redress agreement, if elected.