It didn’t take long for the Prime Minister to realize he’d made an embarrassing boo-boo.
Wrapping up the G8 meeting in Italy, he used the occasion of a sombre international gathering on the economy and climate change to mount a partisan political attack on Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.
As you see here, the PM blundered. Poor staff work had misinformed him about comments allegedly made by Ignatieff, but which were actually made by someone else — an unnamed academic.
The comments suggested that the G8 might morph itself into a larger body, but without Canada as a member.
Thinking it a good opportunity to tear a strip off the Leader of the Opposition, Harper let fly with such pie-in-the-face spoilers as:
- “Mr. Ignatieff is supposed to be a Canadian …”
- ” … irresponsible, coming from a senior Canadian parliamentarian.”
- “Nobody, but Mr. Ignatieff, in the world has suggested excluding Canada from a meeting of major countries. Nobody.”
Mr. Ignatieff, gentleman that he is, has accepted the PM’s apology.
“I accept the Prime Minister’s apology… Canada’s efforts would have been better spent engaging with global leaders on shared issues.”
Know what gets me about this? Not that sloppy work by the PM’s press secretary gave him a bum steer. Not that someone thinks Canada may get frozen out of future international confabs.
No, what gets me is that the Prime Minister of Canada (that’s all of us) would use the occasion of a global forum to launch a partisan attack on the leader of another party. To turn a G8 news conference into a venue for putting the knife into a domestic political rival.
Even if Mr. Ignatieff had said something along the lines of what he had (incorrectly) been reported to have said. That still wouldn’t have justified the PM’s remarks.
There’s no room for cheap domestic politicking at a serious gathering of heads of government.
It’s been a bad week for the PM. His chronic tardiness for G8 photo shoots.The dust-up caused by backroom Tories protesting the $400,000 tourism grant to the Toronto Gay Pride parade. News that the U.S. is going to build its own isotope facility, due entirely to Mr. Harper’s abandonment of Canadian production.
The latest public opinion poll put the Conservatives a point up on the Liberals. They won’t stay there, at this rate.
Filed under: Politics | Tagged: G8 meeting, Michael Ignatieff Liberal leader, Stephen Harper blunder
