It seems that a collective amnesia has set upon the national press corps, the Conservative government and -- strangest of all -- the federal Liberal caucus, it's leader in particular.

With all the brouhaha over Etobicoke Centre MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj's supposed comments over Hezbollah, everybody seems to have missed the point that to accomplish what Borys suggested in the first place -- namely find a way to maintain a dialogue with Hezbollah in order to maintain the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, Canada does not have to take Hezbollah off the terrorist list at all. All we have to do is to revert back to our original designation of the "Hezbollah External Security Organization" as a terrorist group. This was the designation passed in the October 2, 2001 act for the Administrative Consolidation of the United Nations Suppression of Terrorism Regulations.

In December 2002, this was amended to Hezbollah, the organization as a whole.

Three other countries besides Canada -- the United States, Israel and the Netherlands -- designate Hezbollah, the organization as a whole.

But both the United Kingdom and Australia, Commonwealth partners of ours with unimpeachable anti-terrorist credentials, designate the "Hezbollah External Security Organization".

The Australian designation states the following:

"While it began as a militia, the group has evolved into a multi-faceted organisation including political, social and military components. The functions of the organisation include legitimate political and social activities. However the Hizballah External Security Organisation (ESO) comprises a distinct terrorist wing."

The Australian document goes on to list the terrorist activities of the ESO in quite substantial detail.

What this designation does allow is for both the Australians and the British to engage in any dialogue with the political wing that may be necessary in order to maintain a fragile ceasefire. It also allows both countries to cooperate with the social wing whenever necessary to provide humanitarian aid to the devastated country. And that too is necessary since Hezbollah maintains a social assistance network in Lebanon. To ignore that Middle East reality is to bury your head in the sand.

However, what should be stressed is that in neither the British nor the Australian cases is anyone denying the terrorist actions of the military wing.

Now isn't that what Borys Wrzesnewskyj was talking about in the first place?

Yet for some strange reason, no one brought this issue up during all the news stories, television reports and commentaries that deal with this case.

Ukrainian News discovered this distinction between the world designations on its own, by searching public documents freely available on the Internet.

When informed of this by Ukrainian News, Wrzesnewskyj commented that it was "very interesting". He had not known about it before, which means this wasn't brought up at the Aug. 24, 2006 Liberal caucus meeting where he was hauled upon the carpet.

Now Borys was first elected in 2004, so he was not aware of the two designations. But there are members of the Liberal caucus who were in government in both 2001 and 2002, so they had to be aware of this. Why didn't they say anything? This applies most specifically to Interim Liberal Leader Bill Graham, who so readily accepted Wzresnewskyj's resignation. As Foreign Minister in December 2002, he's the one who initiated the change of designation in the first place.

The near-hysteria which accompanied some of the reaction to Wrzesnewskyj's comments, combined with the collective amnesia regarding Canada's recent legislation is quite astounding. This only serves to stifle constructive dialogue in a situation where, in the interests of peace, such dialogue becomes critical.