OTTAWA (CP) - Supporters for Alliance leadership candidate Stockwell Day say leadership rival Stephen Harper is taking a page from former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau by lashing out against minority groups.
In published reports Saturday, Harper organizers accused Day of courting Pentecostals, Catholics opposed to abortion, Orthodox Jews, and members of the Dutch Reform Church in order to regain his post.
Those attacks are no different from remarks made by Parizeau in 1995, when he blamed ethnic minorities for costing separatists a referendum victory on sovereignty, Day's supporters said.
"This was wrong of Parizeau and it's wrong for Stephen Harper to do the same," said MP Gerry Ritz on Saturday.
"Stephen's is a campaign of exclusion that appears to be targeting minorities. That's not leadership, that's not building alliances, that's building firewalls."
In media reports Saturday, Tom Flanagan, Harper's campaign manager, stepped up a war of words about religious and ethnic minorities.
"(Day) is trying to string together a coalition of single-interest groups to win," Flanagan said. "It is very dangerous for the party if it gets taken over by special interest groups."
Eric Duhaime, Day's spokesman, questioned why the presence of minorities in the party would pose any threat, especially when many of Harper's supporters are Christian pro-life supporters and evangelicals.
He added that a controversy stirred up by Harper and Grant Hill, another leadership contender, over party members recruited by the Day campaign were a desperate attempt to smear Day.
"Attacking people who support another candidate within your own party, building firewalls to exclude people of certain faiths from your own party, starting a whisper campaign about memberships in your own party - these are signs of desperation," he said.
On Friday, Hill accused the Day campaign of trying to sign up people for memberships without their knowledge or consent, through an email campaign to volunteers.
Duhaime called the accusation groundless, noting that the email referred to soliciting money from the people who are being signed up.
"If it's their money, how can they not know they are being signed up?" he asked.
Hill asked the party's national council to do an independent audit of Day's memberships. Council officials were not immediately available for comment Saturday.
Without minorities, the party could be seen as intolerant and undemocratic, Ritz said.
"Unlike the Harper campaign, we welcome all common sense Canadians, also including libertarians, fiscal conservatives, democratic reformers, gun owners and every other person who wants positive change for Canada."
The evangelical Christian and anti-abortion issues have been simmering on the Alliance back-burner for months, before reappearing in this leadership race.
In 2000, supporters of Preston Manning, then a leadership contender, accused Day of courting the pro-life vote.
The strategy backfired, and Manning lost support from many on the Christian right.
On Friday, the lobby group Campaign Life Coalition backed down on its call for membership donations that would be used to attract pro-life members who would endorse either Day or Hill.
According to new rules, only individuals can purchase memberships through e-mail, riding association offices or leadership campaign officials, and they must give their consent. Groups cannot purchase memberships.
Campaign Life president Jim Hughes said his group had no idea the rules had changed.
The group mailed out more than 100,000 letters to supporters asking for money to buy party memberships, and urging people to vote for both Day or Hill.