After Toronto-area Liberal MP Wajid Khan crossed the floor to join Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson (pictured) made this allegation in an online Q & A with Globe readers:
"Wajid Khan will disappear after the next election. He signed up several thousand Muslims and won the Liberal nomination in a safe Liberal seat… It gives a government a visible minority presence that it lacks, so in the short term this is good, and it balances a little the optics of a government that had pretty much handed its Middle East policy over to the Canada-Israel Committee."
In today?s National Post, columnist John Turley-Ewart dismissed Simpson’s comment as "odd" and "absurd":
"Wajid Khan’s move across the green carpet last week to join Stephen Harper’s governing Conservatives prompted some odd reactions — none more so than that of Globe columnist Jeffrey Simpson.
But putting aside absurd suggestions that supporters of Israel — whoever they might be — are dictating Canada’s foreign policy, few are asking the important question…"
