Elizabeth May's moment of truth

Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May deserves praise for urging four of her party's current and former candidates to cancel an Ottawa conference that is showcasing apologists for Iran's government. But Ms. May should do more: She should eject these individuals from the Green party.

The four Green party activists are Paul Maillet, a retired Canadian Air Force colonel who is the Green candidate in Ottawa-Orleans; Qais Ghanem, a doctor who is running in Ottawa South; and two 2008 federal Green candidates, Akbar Manoussi and Sylvie Lemieux.

As reported on the Maclean's website by reporter Michael Petrou, Dr. Ghanem is a conspiracy theorist who believes that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job perpetrated by U.S. government agents, not an act of terror perpetrated by Muslim extremists. Even if Ms. May is successful in getting the conference shut down, Dr. Ghanem's views would still disgrace the Green party in his capacity as official representative in Ottawa South. Just as Stephane Dion once dumped Lesley Hughes, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist running for the Liberals in the Winnipeg riding of Kildonan-St. Paul, so too must Ms. Green dump Dr. Ghanem.

Event co-organizer Akbar Manoussi, meanwhile, claims to be both the secretary-general of the Iranian Scholars Association of Canada (an entity that no one has heard of ) and the director-general of the Iranian Cultural Centre of Ottawa, which appears to share the same address as the Iranian embassy.

Also on the speakers' list for this week's conference is Davood Ameri, director general of the Iran-based Islamic World Peace Forum (IWPF). That organization's website features several anti-Semitic cartoons, including ones depicting Israeli soldiers murdering babies and another with a caricatured Jew wearing a top hat full of infant skulls. There are also to be three Iranian academics on the conference program, all from state-controlled Tehran University.

If Ms. May wants the Green party to be taken seriously by voters, she must make it clear that there is no room in her organization for conspiracy theorists, or for those who would help Iran's anti-Semitic theocrats spread their hateful propaganda in Canada.