Attack flyers sent to opposition ridings under the names of Conservative backbenchers and Cabinet ministers are leading to a bitter confrontation over the hardball tactics of Tory backroomers.

NDP MP Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore, N.S.) will find out this week whether government aides who drafted false claims over his stand on the federal gun registry and circulated them in his riding will be summoned to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee to answer for their actions.

In another standoff over the government flyers, the Commons will vote on sending another complaint from Liberal MP Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal) to the same committee for another inquiry . The flyers are known as Ten Percenters because Commons bylaws allow MPs to send flyers to up to 10 per cent of the voter's in any other riding through free Parliamentary postage.

In both cases, Speaker Peter Milliken (Kingston and The Islands, Ont.) ruled the flyers had breached the Parliamentary privileges of Mr. Stoffer and Mr. Cotler, both of whom angrily denounced the Ten Percenters as they made their cases in the Commons and the committee.

Mr. Stoffer told the Procedure and House Affairs Committee last week he had accepted an apology from Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, Sask.) for a flyer that falsely claimed Mr. Stoffer supported the federal gun registry, even though he has opposed it since his first election in 1997.

But he insisted on getting the chance to confront backroom Conservatives whom Mr. Vellacott implied had produced and distributed the flyers.

"I accepted Mr. Velacott's apology, it was sincere, it was correct," Mr. Stoffer told the committee, adding however that although Mr. Velacott's name was on the flyer, he did not draft it.

"It was done by somebody in the central party of the Conservative party and, to be frank with you sir, whoever designed this, whoever authorized it to send out, that's the person I would like to meet. I lived in the Yukon [where] we would make sure that person had a disability pension right after we met with him," said Mr. Stoffer.

"But we can't do that these days, we have to be nice, but it's that person I would like to see apologize, not just to myself, but to all my other colleagues in the House of Commons who receive this nonsense."

Mr. Stoffer called the flyer a "bold-faced lie" and said it would have been impossible for the Conservatives to be unaware of his voting record on the gun registry. "Why did they do it? Is it to piss me off? Is it to get me upset, is it to win my seat, is it to garner votes among my constituents, to get a database or raise funds? If you wanted to say that I voted against certain terms in a budget, that's fair game. If you wanted to send something to my riding talking about the home renovation tax credit, that's fair game. But to send a bold-faced lie into my personal riding," said Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Milliken said a Conservative flyer circulated in Mr. Cotler's riding that suggested Liberals were anti-Semitic and anti-Israel would have left his constituents with "an impression at variance with the member's long-standing and well-known position on these matters."

Mr. Cotler told the Commons the flyer, stating that Liberals had participated in an anti-Semitic conference in Durban, South Africa, was "particularly outrageous" because the same flyer had been circulated in other ridings with large Jewish populations and "Durban has emerged for Jews in my own riding and others as a metaphor for virulent anti-Semitism. Accordingly, to identify any political party, let alone a Jewish MP, with willingly participating in such an anti-Semitic event is a most loathsome and dangerous accusation that one could make against that party and that member."

He told the Commons that some residents of his riding had, in response to the flyer, urged him to quit as an MP and also to leave the Jewish community. "There could not be a more pernicious and prejudicial fallout from this damaging flyer as that which I have quoted."

Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) attempted to defend the flyer, first noting that former federal Liberal citizenship minister Elinor Caplan had accused the Conservative Party of being "filled with racists, bigots, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers." He also said Mr. Cotler could not deny he had attended the Durban conference. Mr. Cotler agreed Liberals had attended the conference, but were later commended by the government of Israel for denouncing the anti-Semitic statements that took place.

Liberal MP Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Man.), who is also Jewish, said a similar flyer in her riding resulted in the "lowest" moment she had experienced during nine years in the Commons.

Another Liberal, Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.), said nine Conservative MPs are continuously targeting his riding, after he led a successful coalition that prevented the Harper government from dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board.

"I call it hate mail," said Mr. Easter. "The reason I'm targeted is I challenged Stephen Harper on the Wheat Board and we beat him."

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