Senior Liberals have reacted angrily to a column in Tuesday's National Post by Jonathan Kay, in which he suggested Liberal MPs Navdeep Bains and Omar Alghabra shopped Sikh and Muslim delegates to Liberal leadership candidates on the condition that they oppose renewing two controversial provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Kay cited a  "well-informed source" claiming that Bains and Alghabra agreed "months in advance" to deliver delegates along ethnic and religious lines through Gerard Kennedy, whom they had identified(in Kay's words)"as an empty vessel into which they could pour their parochial agendas."

Stéphane Dion, to whom almost all Kennedy delegates eventually gave their support, responded in Thursday's National Post, complaining that Kay had never contacted him for comment.

"Had he done so, I would have... told Mr. Kay that the sunsetting of these two provisions was never discussed at any time with any leadership contender as a condition of support at the leadership convention," Dion wrote. "And far from extracting any kind of price for their support, Liberal MPs such as Navdeep Bains and Omar Alghabra encouraged members of newer Canadian cultural communities to get democratically engaged in politics for the candidate they believed in, not even seeking traditional campaign titles for themselves in return."

Earlier in the week, Rob Silver - Kennedy's national policy director during his leadership bid - fiercely denied that any such discussions ever took place. And he suggested that the direct link between the provisions voted down on Tuesday afternoon and the Air India inquiry is too recent to have come up during the leadership convention.

"The issue of the sunset clauses in the anti-terror legislation was never raised by Navdeep Bains or any of his supporters," Silver told Macleans.ca. "It was never raised by Omar Alghabra and it certainly wasn't part of the discussions with Mr. Dion's camp.

"Of all the things we discussed, this was never on the radar," he said. "For Mr. Kay to suggest otherwise is absolutely factually incorrect."

On Wednesday, Kennedy himself lashed out at the allegations, and similar ones made by Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre on an Ottawa radio station last week, calling them "totally baseless and without any factual foundation whatsoever.

"This is simply a concoction that serves one interest, the decision by the prime minister to take into partisan terms what should have been in the public interest, which is the safety of Canadians."

Bains recently told Maclean's Ottawa bureau chief John Geddes that he wasn't even aware during the leadership campaign that the provisions in question were soon to be reviewed. Asked if he had discussed any security or foreign affairs policy issues with Kennedy before deciding to support him, Bains said, "No, nothing like that."

Alghabra told Macleans.ca that Bains "never knew much" about the Act. For his own part, Alghabra said that he intended to push for the clauses to be sunsetted, but had never discussed the issue with Dion and didn't remember it ever coming up during the convention itself.

"I can tell you for a fact, as far as I know, there were no deals signed by anybody," Alghabra said of Kennedy's decision to back Dion. "I never asked for anything in return."

Alghabra also disputed Kay's suggestion that  he "stood by mute" while the Canadian Arab Federation suggested to Muslim delegates that they not vote for Rae because his wife is Jewish.

"That is absolutely not the case," the Mississauga MP told Macleans.ca. He noted that he had actively spoken out against such discrimination - providing a letter from Canadian Jewish Congress president Ed Morgan thanking him for his "vigorous condemnation of the antisemitic attacks against Bob and Arlene Perley Rae."

Kay dismissed Alghabra's defence in an e-mail to Macleans.ca.  "Alghabra claims the Canadian Jewish Congress letter proves I'm wrong," he said. "But it doesn't.

"The date on it is Dec. 21 - more than 2 weeks after the convention. That does not fall into the definition of 'while these events unfolded.' No one cared what Alghabra or any other Liberal was saying half a month after Dion was already elected party leader."

Kay's column came hot on the heels of last week's controversy in the House of Commons, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper called MPs' attention to a Vancouver Sun article suggesting that Bains' father-in-law was to be called before the Air India inquiry.

While the Liberals shouted him down before he could conclude his remarks, Harper seemed to be implying that the opposition party was opposed to the investigative hearing and preventive arrest clauses in the Act because it wanted to protect the backbench MP's family.

In Thursday's Post, Dion also rejected the idea that Sikh delegates had "shunned" Bob Rae because of his support for the Air India inquiry. "Bob Rae was in fact one of the candidates to be supported by significant numbers of Sikh Canadians, including his campaign chair, former B.C. premier and current Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh and former Cabinet minister Herb Dhaliwal," Dion wrote, noting that he and Michael Ignatieff also entered the convention with "significant numbers of Sikh-Canadian delegates.

"This is not a surprise since we each had campaigns that appealed to Canadians of all creeds, colours and ethnicity. Such inclusivity may confuse people like Mr. Kay but it is irresponsible of him to suggest that the only possible explanation for such participation by ethnic minorities in politics is a nefarious plot to undermine national security."

Despite the Liberals' criticisms of Kay's column, Conservative MPs evidently took it to heart. As Liberals voted against the anti-terror provisions' extension on Tuesday, heckles of "How many delegates?" and "Omar for leader" could be heard coming from the government benches.

With files from Philippe Gohier, Aaron Wherry and Canadian Press

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