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“I understand that emotions are running high,” he said.

“I extend a hand of friendship to every citizen of Orléans, especially to all members of the Liberal family.”

Leslie offered to meet with anyone in the room to discuss their concerns and how he hopes to represent them.

“Today, we are a team, we are a family. Yes, there has been some tensions in the family. This is natural. It’s actually healthy. It shows that there is passion, there is fire.”

Leslie’s remarks were cheered by many Liberals who gave him a standing ovation, while others angrily sat in their seats.

Bertschi ran for the Liberals in the riding in 2011, losing to Galipeau, and also made a long-shot bid in the leadership contest won by Trudeau in 2013.

[np_storybar title=”Gen. Andrew Leslie’s frank talk suggests the Liberals’ foreign policy shibboleths are on their last legs” link=”http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/09/15/gen-andrew-leslies-frank-talk-suggests-the-liberals-foreign-policy-shibboleths-are-on-their-last-legs/”]

Retired lieutenant-general Andrew Leslie was last seen making Conservative and Sun News heads explode with criticisms of Israel’s “indiscriminate” and “dumb” bombing of civilians in Gaza. But on Saturday at the general meeting of the Liberals’ Ontario wing in Markham, during a foreign policy session for delegates, Mr. Leslie did not talk like a man on a leash.

He did cede a question on Gaza to co-panelist Kirsty Duncan, the Liberals’ international development critic. But on Canada’s shuttered embassy in Tehran, he suggested the Conservatives aren’t just uninterested in diplomacy, but hope to “exacerbate [the] situation … as a way to either anger or get excited their base.” And on radicalized young men shipping out to fight for ISIS, he called it “a tragedy for [the] families that have lost their young men.” He stressed ISIS’s barbarism has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. And he even dared mention the need to “deal with some of the root causes — disaffection, disenfranchisement, whatever it might be.”