Pubdate: Wed, 13 Sep 2006
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456

CANDIDATE'S LSD USE LATEST SPARK IN BY-ELECTION

NDP Accuses Liberals Of Double Standard

Liberals are being accused of having a double standard for slamming 
NDP candidate Cheri DiNovo over past use of LSD when she was a 
"street kid," after Health Minister George Smitherman's recent 
admission he once was addicted to illegal drugs.

The latest flashpoint in the campaign for tomorrow's by-election in 
Parkdale-High Park came yesterday in an Ontario Liberal Party 
statement urging DiNovo, now a United Church minister, to "come 
clean" on controversial remarks she made in the past.

Among other things, she admitted during a Vision TV program last 
March and again in a sermon at her church to smuggling LSD from 
California. "We did it in hollowed-out Bibles," DiNovo is quoted as 
saying, calling the psychedelic drug "good stuff, not ... crap." She 
did not deny the remarks yesterday, saying "I was a street kid. I 
never hid that fact."

The statement from the Liberals, who have stepped up their campaign 
to keep the riding in party hands after Gerard Kennedy resigned to 
run for the federal leadership, says "voters have a right to know how 
her values will affect her ability to represent this riding." DiNovo 
called the statement a double standard and "a last desperate attempt" 
by Liberals to stave off an embarrassing defeat in the riding for 
candidate Sylvia Watson, a city councillor.

"When George Smitherman admits to taking drugs he's hailed as a hero 
by (Premier) Dalton McGuinty," said DiNovo, 56.

"I pulled myself up and got myself back to university and 
accomplished a successful career in business and in the ministry." 
Smitherman revealed in May that he spent five years fighting -- and 
finally beating -- an addiction to illegal street stimulants used as 
"party drugs" on the gay scene in the early to mid 1990s after his 
father died. The revelation took McGuinty by surprise, but he did not 
hold it against his health minister.

"I hope that he will serve as an inspiration to others in Ontario and 
wherever else who find themselves in a grip of a drug addiction," 
McGuinty told reporters at the time.

Allegations of dirty tricks in the campaign shadowed the premier 
yesterday at an announcement in Mississauga of $109 million to 
further improve medical wait times in the province.

McGuinty ignored calls from NDP Leader Howard Hampton to censure 
Liberal activists who on Monday distributed comments from DiNovo 
lamenting the media frenzy around freed child killer Karla Homolka. 
"The Liberal party has gone into the gutter," Hampton said in a 
statement, adding the remarks comparing Homolka's treatment to the 
persecution of Jesus Christ were taken out of context. McGuinty said 
he had nothing to do with the Homolka remarks excerpted from a DiNovo 
sermon last October.

Liberals have campaigned feverishly in the riding in recent days, 
with Kennedy and leadership rival Bob Rae greeting commuters with 
Watson at the Keele subway station yesterday morning. On Monday, 11 
cabinet ministers went on a door-knocking blitz.

"The government is in full disaster mode," said Conservative Leader 
John Tory, whose party is running former city councillor David Hutcheon.
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