Here's And here's some stuff I wrote about it:
MONCTON, N.B. – Conservative Leader Stephen Harper reminded enthusiastic supporters here of his family's New Brunswick roots and cheered the region's “confidence” and “vibrant entrepreneurial economy” hours after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, also campaigning near here, reminded Atlantic Canada voters that Harper once characterized the region as having “a culture of defeat.”
“It is always very emotional when I come back to New Brunswick,” Harper said at the end of a 25-minute stump speech to about 450 supporters in a local high school. Though Harper was born in Toronto, his father was born in New Brunswick and he can trace his family roots back to the 1700s in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
“This area, this economy – you may not see it living here every day – but this has come so far from the times when I was a boy. This place has developed a strong economy, (and) a vibrant entrepreneurial economy,” Harper said. “There is confidence. There is energy.”
In a speech in 2002, shortly after he became leader of the official Opposition, Harper said Atlantic Canada was trapped in “a culture of defeat”, a result of federal government policies. Harper refused to apologize then even though the Legislature of Nova Scotia unanimously condemned the comment and former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord also criticized Harper for the remark.
Lord, now the co-chair of the Conservative campaign, delivered a fiery speech at the rally, in a riding held by Liberal MP Brian Murphy.
“It's not a coincidence that after the prime minister won the debates, that he has decided to come to New Brunswick two days in a row and only to visit Liberal ridings,” Lord said. “At the same time, we have Stephane Dion fighting for his job as leader of the Opposition who was also visiting Liberal ridings. I think that tells you something very important.”
Earlier in the day, speaking in Yarmouth, N.S., Harper said his party was optimistic about its electoral chances in the four eastern provinces.
“There's probably no part of the country where people are more sensitive about the costs of energy,” Harper said. In most parts of Atlantic Canada, the primary source of energy for home heating is fuel, whereas it is electricity in Quebec and natural gas and electricity in the rest of the country. “When the opposition party's major plank is they're going to deal with economic uncertainty by imposing a carbon tax, I think that shakes up a lot of people, even a lot of people who have been pretty traditional Liberal voters.”
While in the region, the Conservatives announced that if re-elected, they would increase the budgets of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Department of Western Economic Diversification, and the Economic Development Agency of Canada for Quebec Regions by $300 million over four years. Harper said he would also divert $10 million of that funding to rural and low-employment communities in southern Ontario.
“The regions of Canada are unique, unique in their needs, their potential and their aspirations,” Harper said at a news conference in a maritime museum here. “Therefore we have made investments accordingly.”
Earlier in his career, Harper and others in the Reform Party movement sometimes criticized regional development agencies – which spend nearly a $1 billion a year – because they appeared to be sources of funds politicians could dip into for projects that might win them political support.
The Conservatives themselves have made questionable investments with regional development money, say Liberals say.
A few days before the election, for example, Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who is the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, announced ACOA would provide $50,000 for a three-day curling tournament to be held next month in his riding in New Glasgow, N.S., where he is now facing Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. Mackay said at the time, the funding is “a marketing effort (that) will also promote this area as a tourism destination and a good place to do business.”
Technorati Tags: conservatives, elections, protestors, bernard lord, Stephen Harper
I wonder if you could direct me to a site where I could read the entire “culture of defeat” speech. My google search so far has been fruitless.
The reason I'd like to read the entire speech for myself is to get the entire picture and to judge for myself what Mr. Harper actually meant.
As almost always happens with Mr. Harper's speeches, some sentences are taken from them, those that in isolation could be construed as inflammatory, and then those same isolated sentences are used for partisan purposes, repeated ad nauseam, as we see Mr. Dion doing once again with the “culture of defeat” speech.
I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of people who refer to the “firewall” letter have never read all of it. (I found a link).
I'd be willing to wager that a Harper letter written in 2005, where he revises his position on Iraq, among other things, has conveniently never found its way to the front pages of newspapers. I posted a comment on this on another blog recently (see below).
When searching for the “culture of defeat” speech, one of the sites I happened upon purports to present a list of Harper speeches. All it has are snippets from his speeches on various topics, including Atlantic Canada. It then lists the newspaper articles where the damning sentence is taken from, but there are NO links to those articles.
“A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.”
Despite all the chuckles that Chretien statement evoked, to me it makes sense.
It expresses in its unusual way why I like to hear/read exactly what was said.
========
Beginning of previously posted comment
The Liberals and their supporters love to dig up past statements made by Stephen Harper in order to resurrect the “hidden agenda” meme. Strange they didn't come across a letter then-opposition leader Stephen Harper wrote to the Washington Times to counter some conclusions drawn in an op-ed published there.
In said letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, Mr. Harper states his position unequivocally on various salient issues. You can find the full text of the letter here:
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~dastow/harper-wtimes.txt
Here is what Mr. Harper said on Iraq:
“On Iraq, while I support the removal of Saddam Hussein and applaud the efforts to establish democracy and freedom in Iraq, I would not commit Canadian troops to that country. I must admit great disappointment at the failure to substantiate pre-war intelligence information regarding Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction.”
Of course, resurrecting past statements made by Stephen Harper have become the main preoccupation of the Liberals' war room, aided and abetted by friendly media. Yet the same friendly media are able to smile benignly at Mr. Ignatieff's pro-Iraq stance, his pro-torture position, and his accusation of Israel committing war crimes in the 2006 battles with Lebanon, not to mention other damning positions held by other illustrious past and present Liberals. Of course, those can be dismissed as youthful escapades.
end
=======