Angry in the Great White North

From this CBC article dated August 8:

Wrzesnewskyj said that the MPs should meet backers and members of the political wing of Hezbollah because they are players in any peace deal in Lebanon.

Just before his August 15th trip to Syria, he made it clear he was going with the intention of meeting with Hezbollah:

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, who is his party's associate critic for foreign affairs, told Embassy he hopes the trip will show the international community that not all Canadians agree with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's unconditional support of Israel in its conflict with the militant group Hezbollah. "We want key decision-makers in the Middle East to understand that Canada does not see this in black and white, that we're not unequivocally backing one side," Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said. "Personally, I can say that I look at the hostile combatants on either side and none of the sides are innocent except the civilians that are dying."

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said he would like to meet with officials from Syria and Hezbollah's political wing to hear their perspectives. Asked whether he was worried about his safety, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said: "I'm willing to take some personal risks. But I'm not foolhardy."

Note that this is in direct contradiction to what his host from the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations said:

The delegation will stop first in Damascus, where it will meet the Syrian Foreign Minister, MPs and the speaker of the Syrian parliament. The Canadians also plan to visit a Lebanese refugee camp in Syria.

After that, they head to Beirut. There they will meet the Lebanese Foreign Minister, representatives from the national parliament, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies and various political parties.

[Trip organizer Mazen] Chouaib said the delegation will not meet anybody from Hezbollah.

So which is it? Was Wrzesnewskyj meeting with Hezbollah or was he not meeting with Hezbollah?

With Wrzesnewskyj, you might have trouble getting a straightforward answer to that question. On August 21:

Dropping Hezbollah from a list of banned terrorist organizations in Canada would aid the cause of peace, according to two MPs now on a fact-finding mission to Lebanon.

When asked if he was in favour of Hezbollah being taken off the terror list, Etobicoke Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj said: "Yes, I would be."

It was the Liberals, not the Conservatives, who placed Hezbollah on Canada's terror list and, while acknowledging this, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said: "When you realize that a mistake has been made that does not provide for a solution, you don't entrench your decision."

On August 22:

Toronto Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj denied reports yesterday that he said Hezbollah should be taken off Canada's terrorist list.

Wrzesnewskyj said yesterday he favours changing Canadian laws that forbid any contact with known terrorist organizations. He said the law undermines efforts to seek lasting peace between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas after a 33-day war.

But Hezbollah's terrorist status should not change, he said in an interview from Lebanon.

And that's the kicker, isn't it. Wrzesnewskyj left for his trip eager to meet with Hezbollah. He's been saying it for weeks now. The problem is that it is against Canadian law to meet with Hezbollah, since the entire organization has been listed as a terrorist group. When he left for the fact-finding mission, the NCCAR's Mazen Chouaib was careful to say that a meeting with Hezbollah was not going to happen. Of course, Chouaib doesn't want to be arrested. Wrzesnewskyj's status as an MP, on the other hand, gives him the ability to publicly declare his intention to break the law without fear of prosecution, or so he thinks. And he might be right on that. Still, now that the heat is on, his story changes, and he backs off his earlier declarations of support to remove Hezbollah from the list of terrorist groups.

Did Wrzesnewskyj break the law and meet with Hezbollah? I can't prove it, but I am certain that the story of planned meetings in Damascus with the Syrian speaker and the MPs and such are all nonsense. What does a Canadian back bench MP from an opposition party have to say to a Syrian back bench MP? I'm willing to bet that as soon as the photographers were shooed away and the doors were closed, the Syrians filed out and the Hezbollah representatives filed in. No pesky RCMP or CSIS officers in Damascus to remind Wrzesnewskyj that he's breaking the law. No Canadian bureaucrats as witnesses who might spill the beans to the press. If I'm right, then Canada's fact finders spoke with Hezbollah first, before they met with the Lebanese. Poor Lebanon. Still being used by people who don't give a damn about the country or its people.

Is this why Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro was pulled out of the trip at the last minute? Did the PMO get wind of what was going to happen in Damascus? Was Wrzesnewskyj going to have a private meeting with Hezbollah, and the PMO decided they didn't want any of their people anywhere close when that happened?

I wonder what Wrzesnewskyj told the Hezbollah representatives, if indeed he fulfilled his wish to finally meet with them. That he would work hard to make sure that the next time, this meeting could be done in public? That he apologized for the behaviour of the Canadian government? That he would help Hezbollah achieve their goals?