Tuesday, April 26, 2011

What Stephen Harper Said

During the 2011 election, the Liberals kindly posted a rather substantial document that had a collection of things that Stephen Harper said before he became an MP, while he was an MP and while he was with the National Citizens' Coalition  If there is one thing that our PM is known for, it's his dogged pursuit of his beliefs and his unflagging feeling that he knows what is best for us and Canada.


From the documents, I've selected a few of the gems as outlined below.

Here are several regarding Mr. Harper's stand on Canada's health care system and how he would provide a multi-tiered system.  Note the date at the top of the quotation, followed by the quote and its context and the source of the quote:





Here's what Mr. Harper had to say about the bill that proposed gun registry.  Note that he supported "...some of the philosophy (sic) behind the gun bill" at the time:


Here's what Mr. Harper thought about MPs voting in accordance with the wishes of their constituents rather than along Party lines.  Apparently, his need to control his MPs is a recent change in his approach to Parliament:


Mr. Harper is at the very least consistent in his view of corporate tax cuts despite the fact that the relationship between lower corporate taxes and increased employment is far from conclusive:



This sort of information is long overdue.  We've been reminded for the past several months of things that Mr. Ignatieff said over the past decade about his relationship with Canada, the possibility of his return to Harvard and his yearning for higher taxes among other things on those annoying Conservative Party television commercials.  What has been lacking is balance; the Liberals under Mr. Ignatieff seem to want to fight a "gentleman's battle", fighting with polite bantering rather than the verbal nuclear weapons that they needed to use months ago.

What has been surprising is the lack of balance in Canada's media throughout the electoral process.  As I've demonstrated, some of the things that Mr. Harper has said in the past are, to say the least, rather shocking, but the mainstream media seems to quickly lose focus on his past stance on issues leaving Mr. Harper stand as the teflon Prime Minister.  As voters, it is up to us to hold all of the leaders of the major political parties responsible for what they have said in the past as it is representative of their true character, especially when they were said without the benefit of either talking points or the aid of political handlers.  We need to know what their real stand on issues is before we pick up that stubby pencil and mark an "X" beside the name of someone whose leader's stance on issues varies with the direction of the wind.

5 comments:

  1. All i ask for is balance...but going back to 2002,really i'm sure you have said a few things back then ,that you have changed your view on now. What you can't get passed is Martin robbed use...facts are there. Anyway carry on.

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  2. Quite likely I have changed my opinion....but then, I'm not the Prime Minister who, on one hand says that he won't tax income trusts and then does the exact opposite when he gets into a position where he has the power to do so.

    All I'm trying to say is balance. What Mr. Ignatieff said in the past no more applies to the present than what Mr. Harper has said in the past.

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  3. Precisely right, Political Junkie - what's sauce for the Liberals is sauce for the Tories.

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  4. Really Income Trusts...well ask Mark Holland why he will not show us 18 pages that he has that are not BLACKED OUT,the Libs would have moved on this sooner if Brison don't insider trading on this file/ look i don't care what iggy or harp said in the past....that's why jack is doing well because, he's saying what he wants to do going forward

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  5. I don't consider myself a Conservative and have never voted for them - but honestly I agree with basically everything you've found in these "horrifying" pull quotes...

    Now the draconian enhanced police powers in the upcoming crime omnibus... not so much

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