CONCEPTION BAY SOUTH, NL – Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff accused Stephen Harper Tuesday of being “unCanadian” for allowing two women to be thrown out of a Tory rally because they had Liberal ties on the Facebook social networking site.
“I just think when you get to a situation where people can’t come to a public meeting in Canada and get thrown out by two heavies because they have a Facebook friend from another party, you’re in a bad place,” said Ignatieff after meeting with locals during a campaign stop at a Tim Horton’s. “You’re in a very unCanadian place.”
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Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff stops at a Tim Horton's to chat with a Canadian Forces veteran who served in Afghanistan.
Ignatieff said that Harper should not be doing background checks of an audience at a public event in a democratic election.
He suggested that Harper should have been stepping up his screening process instead within the Conservative leader’s own inner circle.
He noted that Harper had failed to screen a top adviser, Bruce Carson, who joined the prime minister’s office despite having five convictions for committing fraud and undergoing court-ordered psychiatric treatment.
“I think we’re in a very bad place, when you’ve got a prime minister who does a background check on his audience, at a democratic crowd, and doesn’t seem to do a background check on the people he hires in the prime minister’s office like Mr. Carson.”
Ignatieff said his own campaign is gaining momentum because the public is starting to get concerned about Harper’s views on democracy.
“As I said at a rally in Halifax, I am not so vain as to suppose there are big crowds coming out to these (Liberal) rallies because of my blue eyes,” Ignatieff said. “They’re coming out because they’re concerned about their democracy. They’re coming out because they don’t trust this man (Harper) with our institutions.”
He noted that the Liberals have opened their doors to events and that he has met a lot of people who support different political parties, including the Tories, who are also concerned about what they have seen from the government.
The Liberals also said they believe Harper is sitting on a new report from the auditor general reviewing more than $1 billion in government spending on last summer’s G8 and G20 economic summits hosted in Ontario.
Ignatieff said he believed the government committed a “scandalous waste” through a “chain of bad decisions” in staging the event and should release the report immediately.
“We think that is one of the worst examples of fiscal mismanagement in the history of the country and we think the public report on this by the auditor general ought to be out there,” Ignatieff said.
The Conservatives responded that Ignatieff’s request was ridiculous since he was the one who spearheaded the motion which brought down the government and caused the dissolution of Parliament.
They said it would be up to the auditor general, as an independent officer of Parliament, to decide whether to release the report right now.
The Liberal leader was scheduled to visit Quebec City and central Quebec later on Tuesday and explained that he was offering people in the province the opportunity to elect a prime minister who identifies and appreciates their values regarding issues such as culture, the importance of gun control, and protecting women’s rights.
During his stop at the Tim Horton’s, Ignatieff had a lengthy discussion with a pair of veterans from the Canadian Forces, and also was stopped by a man who questioned his support for the oilsands sector in Alberta.
Ignatieff, who one day earlier, called for Canada to become a “green energy” superpower said that the oilsands sector creates jobs and produces oil – a necessity as long as people drive cars and SUVs.
But he later explained that his party is proposing to reduce tax incentives for the industry to help renewable and clean energy options grow.
He also highlighted his own party’s plan to introduce a permanent federal program offering incentives for homeowners that do renovations to make their houses more energy efficient.
Mdesouza@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/mikedesouza
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