Plagarism is Always Wrong, Mr. Harper.

Melanee Thomas — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:20:55 -0600

At least that's what every decent undergraduate student knows.

Thanks to the sands of time, I find this kind of bald-faced policy mistake hilarious. It's illuminating as I've suspected Harper has been coordinated with a variety of interests for quite some time. Much of the anti-Bloc campaign in Quebec seemed too slick to be coincidental. Harper strikes me as the kind of leader who micro-manages every detail of any action plan to the "T", ensuring each operative knows their role in executing the plan. I just assumed he was too savvy to be so blatant, or smart enough to realise a number of people would think, "hmm. That sounds awfully similar. Let's compare the text."

Is this irrelevant? In English Canada, perhaps not. That's not the key battleground on this one, though, and watching the Quebec media will tell us how much this will hurt Harper in QC. Given that the war in Afghanistan is highly unpopular in Quebec AND that a large number of Canadians feel that avoiding Iraq was the smartest bit of Canadian foreign policy in a long time, I'd say this plagarism is decidedly relevant. Harper's strategy of attacking the Bloc might have dislodged a good number of voters into the "undecided" category, but certainly hasn't convinced them that the Conservatives are the way to go. The Bloc is experiencing a bit of a resurgence in Quebec already due to the Conservatives' proposed changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This might just be the spin Duceppe needed to claw his way back up.

Paul Martin, George Bush and the Iraq War

Greg Farries — Mon, 10 May 2004 00:00:00 -0600