Ellen Johnson Sirleaf barely meets classless Steve

I was at the Canada 2020 conference for the past 2 days. There were a series of extraordinary speakers including: former NB Premier and TD Bank vice-Chairman Frank McKenna, author Salmon Rushdie, Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson and finally the amazing Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. There were other speakers as well but I was blown away by those 4 and particularly Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf who proved that with leadership, determination and will a ray of sunshine can polk through the cloudy political skies of Africa to provide a better future for the children of that underdeveloped continent.

So while Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia visited QP Tuesday and no less than 2 of his Ministers were at the conference, PM Steve only squeezed Liberia's president into his schedule after MPs criticized the snub of this woman Time Magazine called one of the top 100 in the world.

In fact, Steve scrambled yesterday to deny he snubbed the Liberian President during the visit. The PMO said yesterday that Harper did briefly meet with Johnson-Sirleaf late yesterday afternoon. Organizers of Johnson-Sirleaf's trip to Canada say an unofficial request was made but were told Harper did not have time in his schedule.
Liberal MP Bryon Wilfert raised the issue in Question Period stating that Harper made time to meet with former Russian goaltender Vladislav Tretiak but not Johnson-Sirleaf.
"As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, why will the Prime Minister not take time from his schedule today to meet with the president of Liberia," Wilfert said.
Harper told reporters later that he found out Johnson-Sirleaf was in town only when she was introduced in the Commons on Tuesday. Since the Foreign Affairs Protocol office had arranged security and the Parliamentary visit and Harper's office would have been aware of this, could this be a little bit of tit for tat from Steve's former leadership rival potato patch Pete MacKay to try to embarrass his boss?
Liberal MP Belinda Stronach (Newmarket-Aurora) told the Toronto Star that a request was made to have Harper meet with Johnson-Sirleaf but "that the Prime Minister had a busy schedule, (he) met with Tretiak. It is in our national interest to help nations such as Liberia succeed," she said after Johnson-Sirleaf spoke at the conference.
Stronach and Canadian comedian Rick Mercer presented Johnson-Sirleaf with 33,000 anti-malaria bed nets for Liberia.
These bednets are a great thing, for $10 Canadian, they can help reduce child mortality in Liberia from above 30% by killing the mosquitoes that transmit the disease.