Stephen Harper: Plagiarism

My guess is that Stephen Harper will be in deep, deep doo-doo over the following video which shows that he clearly plagiarized his famous speech on Canada's involvement in Iraq from Australian President John Howard.



How does Stephen Harper explain the coincidence that half of a major speech he delivered in House of Commons calling for Canadian troops to be sent to the War on Iraq was a word-for-word copy of a speech delivered by then Australian PM John Howard a day earlier? The same speech which he used as the basis for op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and the National Post.

The same speech which Paul Wells at the time called the best that Harper had delivered in his career.

The same speech which Tom Flanagan in his book Harper's Team called "eloquent" (Harper's Team, 89). Flanagan also says "we printed the speech in pamphlet form and mailed out thousands of copies. As far as - could judge, there was strong support from the grassroots of the party." (89)

How does the leader of a political party in Canada's Parliament, on such a crucial issue, give the exact same speech as any another country's leader, let alone a member of W's “Coalition of the Willing”?

How can Canadians trust anything that Mr. Harper says now?

At best this is plagiarism, an offense for which kids in school are failed, university students are expelled and reporters are fired. At worst, Harper is a Stooge for the Americans (along with Howard) and he has no credibility on foreign policy whatsoever.

Andrew McKeever - NDP flagbearer in Durham...Shame! Jack???

NDP Candidate screening - out to lunch...AGAIN

When was the last time a candidate for public office threatened someone with violence who disagreed with them, dropped a C bomb, disagreed with their own party position and said oops sorry? If you're the NDP and theoffensive party is your candidate in Durham - the answer is today.

WARNING - PLEASE NOTE - THE INDIVIDUAL IN QUESTION MADE INEXCUSABLE COARSE AND INAPPROPRIATE COMMENTS - YET STILL CARRIES THE NDP BANNER

See Liberal release below:

NDP Leader Jack Layton must fire his candidate in the riding of Durham over inappropriate comments he made on the internet this summer on the subject of United States war deserters.

“Mr. Layton must fire his candidate in Durham, Andrew McKeever, who threatened people who didn’t agree with him with physical violence in a web posting,” said Durham Liberal Candidate Bryan Ransom.

The following quotes from Mr. McKeever’s Facebook posts are intolerant and demonstrate lack of fitness for public office:

“Answer a direct f**king question you c**t. I can guarantee, if I ever see you face to face I will make you squeal for the same authority you have such a baseless disdain for” [to a woman poster on the Facebook group]

“…one by one the TraitorCriminalDeserters [US war deserters] will be sent back down south to face the music”

“There is no room for this kind of vicious, threatening attack in Canadian politics. These comments are beyond the pale and Jack Layton must denounce them and fire his candidate immediately,” said Dan McTeague, Liberal Candidate for Pickering-Scarborough-East.

The Liberals have made public a pdf file of some of the offending remarks made in a Facebook discussion by the Durham NDP candidate.

Jack - do the right thing and ditch this chump.

Stephen Harper Bubble Campaign

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This video speaks volumes.

Just What is the NDP candidate screening process?

According to CTV, pretty much anything goes...

A direct quote from the story:

In a statement issued Sunday, Julian West - the NDP candidate for Saanich Gulf Islands -- said that aside from removing his clothes to go skinny-dipping, nothing inappropriate happened in the retreat.

But that is not the view of a woman who said she witnessed the incident and is
speaking out for the first time to CTV.

"He did skinny dip, which even if that was all he did, is still insanely inappropriate to do around teenagers,'' said Leah Jones, during a phone interview with CTV.

"We were doing face-painting and he decided he wanted to get his legs painted, and
some of the girls were painting his legs, and he took off his underwear and he had a partial erection and said why stop there girls,'' Jones said.

So let me get this straight, a then 35 year old dude goes to a youth camp and whips it out and asks minor tenaged girls to bodypaint his genitalia and he's a candidate for the NDP? and Layton is treating it as skinnydipping? Outrageous. The NDP must fire West immediately.

Gerry Ritz - Comedy Hits

A lost tape of the Gerry Ritz tainted meats comments fiasco has surfaced.

You Tube Video of the Day

Culture in Danger
This video, titled Culture en Péril (Culture in Danger) was created by a few Québec artists and posted on YouTube to denounce the cuts in cultural funding by the Conservative governement, led by Stephen Harper.

Sarah Palin worries me too

They're talking about us South of the Border

Even Fox News has reported on Gerry Ritz's horrible and insensitive comments:

TORONTO — Canada's prime minister is standing by the Conservative party's embattled agriculture minister after he sheepishly admitted to making jokes last month about a deadly bacteria outbreak linked to processed meats that killed 17 people across the country.
Minister Jerry Ritz called the crisis "a death by a thousand cuts — or should I say cold cuts," during a conference call. When told about a new death in Prince Edward Island he said, "Please tell me it's (Liberal agriculture critic) Wayne Easter."

I've got a crush on Harper ???

This has been in the news the last 2 days - I am not sure that this is of the same quality as Obama girl. You be the judge.

So Tories are in trouble...

To say that Agriculture Minister and Conservative candidate Gerry Ritz' comments about the 17 Canadians who died of listeria were in poor taste is an understatement.

That the federal Cabinet Minister responsible for food safety joked about Canadians dying from listeriosis on a conference call with 30 people is remarkably insensitive and cause for his dismissal.

PM Steve says he's a leader. Let's see if he has the testicular fortitude to do the right thing and fire this sad excuse for a Cabinet minister.

Ukrainian government falling apart

According to the BBC, Ukraine's pro-Western government coalition has officially collapsed, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament says. President Viktor Yushchenko has been involved in a long-running dispute with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The president's Our Ukraine bloc left the coalition earlier this month. Parliament now has 30 days to try to form a new ruling coalition. If those efforts fail, Mr Yushchenko can dissolve parliament and call a snap election.
The Our Ukraine party pulled out of the coalition on 3 September after the Tymoshenko Bloc sided with the pro-Moscow opposition Party of Regions to pass several laws that Mr Yushchenko saw as a threat to his presidential powers.

You Tube Campaign Video of the Day: PM Steve the Perv

Jack Layton's Al Gore moment

Jack Latyton has spent the first week of Canada's election campaign pretending that he is one American politician or another. Most recently in Montreal he was channeling Al Gore who once infamously claimed that he had invented the internet.






Now we know that Layton is also part of the conspiracy to make Steve Gutenberg a star. Jack, it isn't only the fact that your party does press conferences with puppets that undermines your credibility, it is whoppers like these as well.

My favorite video of the Federal election campaign, so far

Parody video of Justin Trudeau. To see the original, visit http://www.justin.ca/.

Standing up for Canada?

Do you think it is easy to find a photo of a Canadian family?

A new Conservative television spot accuses Liberal leader Stéphane Dion of planning to scrap the Con's $1,200 child benefit. The ad features a photo of a young family on a beach, holding their baby girl.

A typical Canadian family enjoying their cheques? Not exactly.

As it turns out, the Tory ad features a photo by a California based photographer and was snapped on a beach near Malibu. And here's the kicker, the father in the picture is a Democrat.

How do you photoshop that egg off Harper's face?

Tory Times are tough Times

Stephen Harper has wondered into an economic minefield in this election campaign with Stats Canada reporting the Canadian economy has reported the worsteconomic grothw and productivity since Brian Mulroney.

Canadian productivity, or output per hour worked, fell 0.2% in the second quarter of 2008, after declines of 0.6% in each of the previous two quarters, Statistics Canada reported. "This is the longest series of consecutive quarterly declines since 1990," StatsCan said.

And according to Merrill Lynch economist David Wolf, it's only though creative bookkeeping that Canada has not fallen into recession:

"It's been a long time since a Canadian federal government has had to choose between supporting the economy and balancing the budget. The winner of the imminent-looking election will very likely face this unfavourable decision."

Mr. Wolf said the only reason Canada avoided a technical recession -- defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction -- in the first half was due to a continued expansion in the public sector. However, he said growth in the public sector was unsustainable without further government stimulus, which would likely pull the budget into deficit for the first time since 1999.

Wow. Conservatives have managed to turn high growth and surpluses to deficits in 2 short years, lovely.

PM Steve doesn't take his own advice

That didn't take long...

Sunday
Stephen Harper
"HARPER: I don't see any reason to go personal and nasty against the other leaders. I have good relations with most of the other leaders, and I respect all of them."
CTV News

Wednesday
A vulgar Internet ad forced Stephen Harper to hit the re-set button on his campaign Tuesday, prompting the prime minister into an embarrassing apology that buried his party's first policy announcement.

But the message was overshadowed by the case of the pesky, pooping puffin with a deadly aim and a dislike for Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.

The Tories posted an ad on their own website showing an animated airborne puffin dropping a load on Dion's shoulder. The offending image was pulled in the morning after complaints, but was regularly re-run on television news networks as part of the coverage on the controversy.

Adding to Tuesday's misery for the Conservatives was news that Rosamond Luke, the Tory candidate for the riding of Halifax, was quitting the race.

A Conservative party source confirmed late Tuesday that Luke has a criminal record, and the CBC reported she was convicted of uttering threats and received 18 months probation in July 2006.

As well, the CBC said, she was convicted of breaching an undertaking in June 2007 and was fined $50 and given an additional nine months probation.

Her departure exacerbates the difficulties the Conservatives have had finding suitable candidates in Atlantic Canada and prompted political observers to raise questions about the party's preparedness in Nova Scotia.

None of that was yet news at Dion's morning campaign stop in Montreal, where he appeared to be unaware of the puffin video when it came up in a question from the media.

Nonetheless, he pounced.

``This is saying more about them than about us,'' he said, drawing cheers from Liberal partisans. Then he rethought his first reaction.

``I want to clarify my answer ... not about them, about him (Harper). Because I know most Conservative voters last time will disagree with that. . . and they may change their vote.''

The prime minister began the campaign by predicting that the Liberals would target him with nasty personal attacks throughout the 37-day contest.

Ukrainian Lullaby

For those of you with little ones or who like to be soothed with a lullaby after a hard day, the music and visuals of this one are absolutely mesmerising.

PM Steve - bribing you with your own money