Angry in the Great White North

Remember that anti-war rally in Montreal last summer?

On Sunday, 15,000 Quebecers, mostly Lebanese-Canadians, marched for "justice and peace" in Lebanon. That sounds benign, but in fact the march was a virulently anti-Israel rally, and scattered amongst the crowd were a number of Hezbollah flags and placards. Leading the parade were Bloc Quebecois chief Gilles Duceppe, Liberal MP Denis Coderre, PQ chief Andre Boisclair, and Amir Khadir, spokesman for the new far-left provincial party, Solidarite Quebec.

All four politicians had signed a statement by the organizers the day before the march, in which Israel is lambasted for its depredations in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank -- but the word "terrorism" is never mentioned, nor Hezbollah assigned any blame for the war.

In their speeches at the conclusion of the march, Messrs. Coderre and Duceppe did not condemn terrorism, did not mention Israel's right to defend itself, and spoke only of Lebanese civilian suffering.

Hezbollah flags were waved proudly and prominently:

Now Denis Coderre is angry at General Rick Hillier for some blunt characterization of the Liberal years in power:

A Liberal MP is accusing the country's top soldier of being "a prop'' for the Conservative party after he described the 1990s as "a decade of darkness'' for the military.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, said in a speech to a defence group today that the Canadian Forces faced troubled times from 1994 on in a period when the Liberals worked to balance the federal budget with heavy budget cuts.

Liberal MP Denis Coderre says he is disappointed that Hillier would describe the Liberal era in such terms.

Better a Conservative prop than a Hezbollah lackey.