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Harper rocked by plagiarism charge on eve of debatesOTTAWA -
A spiralling economic forecast and damning charges of plagiarism against Stephen Harper have injected some drama into the federal election campaign on the eve of the televised leaders debates.Bruce Cheadle, THE CANADIAN PRESS The prime minister formally requested Tuesday that the economy be given more space - up to half the allotted time - in the two-hour debate format.
"I have instructed my party to do everything possible to accommodate a format change to ensure these debates focus on the No. 1 issue on the minds of Canadians - the economy - and that the economic discussion take precedence over less urgent issues," Harper said in a release.
Among those lesser issues, according to a Conservative official, is evidence that Harper lifted huge segments of a 2003 speech in the House of Commons directly from then-Australian prime minister John Howard.
Harper's speech advocated Canadian entry into the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a conflict that continues to this day and has cost more than 4,000 American lives while draining the U.S. treasury of almost US $600 billion.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, a former academic, said "Harper should be expelled" for the plagiarism, adding that the context in which it occurred is "even worse."
"It's about Stephen Harper saying that Canada should go with the war in Iraq," Dion said in Gatineau, Que.
"He's unable to choose his own words, he chose the words of (U.S. President George W. Bush's) coalition of the willing."
A Harper spokesman flatly refused to deny the speech was plagiarized, even when offered a direct invitation to do so. He also repeatedly refused to say who wrote the speech.
Instead, speaking on a conference call with reporters under the cloak of anonymity, he condemned the controversy as "more gotcha politics" that shows "Liberal desperation."
He dismissed a question about whether Howard and Harper may have received Iraq talking points from the Bush administration as "one of the most ridiculous, speculative assertions" - but never responded directly.
He said Harper's past public comments as Opposition leader should have no bearing on how Canadian voters judge his government.
"You're trying to draw comparisons to statements from people in Opposition to the actual record of a government who was in charge of the country. That is an apples-to-oranges comparison."
It's a line of reasoning that effectively negates many stock Tory attacks on Dion, such as the Liberal leader's musings about the GST, deficit financing and Tory child-care allowances.
The Liberals had already begun this week to turn their campaign toward the past Liberal record as deficit-slayers and managers of a roaring Canadian economy.
Not to be outdone, the New Democrats reminded voters Tuesday of several Liberals who advocated Canadian participation in the Iraq war, most notably deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.
NDP Leader Jack Layton had advocated this week for an all-party leaders' summit on the economy before Wednesday night's French-language debate.
The Conservatives argued Tuesday that their proposal to expand the economic segment of the debate to an hour from 15 minutes fit with the NDP rationale.
Harper, Layton and Green Leader Elizabeth May all cleared their schedules for Tuesday, planning to devote their time exclusively to debate preparation.
Harper emerged briefly to see his young daughter Rachel off to school Tuesday, in a staged photo-op that was organized by Conservative party strategists.
Dion and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois held brief events across the river in Gatineau, Que., before buckling down to their own pre-debate studies.
All the opposition leaders have been berating the prime minister in the wake of a stock-market meltdown sparked by economic woes in the United States.
The Toronto stock exchange plunged more than 800 points Monday, following news that American legislators had rejected a massive bailout package proposed by the Bush administration to clean up the mess on Wall Street.
Harper's response is that now is not the time for what he characterized as massive spending plans by the opposition parties that would push the country's finances into deficit, significantly hike taxes - or both.
