A message from Stephen Harper: I've got big cuts in mind for Canadians but not for me and my buddies. Suck on it Canada.

Today Prime Minister Stephen Harper illustrated very clearly his priorities: cuts for Canadians, but not for Stephen Harper, his family, and Conservative Buddies.

At 4:32pm ET the Prime Minister's office issued the following:

Not disclosed in the advisory is the fact that James Moore (Twitter), and Harper's daughter, are going along for the trip. Also not highlighted is the cost to Canadian taxpayers for this junket.

When Stephen Harper was Leader of the Official Opposition one of his M.P.s, Jason Kenney [1], calculated that it cost $11,000 an hour to run the government's Challenger jets, the same jet that will ferry Stephen Harper and his party down to Boston. That cost does not include the additional costs for security which will be incurred. Using Kenney's own figures a conservative estimate of the cost of this joy ride will run to some figure between thirty and fifty thousand dollars.

That's your government at work, closing down programs because they are deemed inessential but spending up to fifty thousand dollars to send two men and a child to a hockey game in Boston.

Ron Cannan (Twitter), a B.C. Conservative MP, is attempting to defend the indefensible on CBC's Power & Politics right now. Mr. Cannan, you are failing miserably at the task, but you know that already of course because there is nothing you can say in defense of this wasteful spending by your leader, Stephen Harper.

Every single lay off, every single program cut, every single "no" issued by the Treasury Board should now be evaluated in this light.

Great work Prime Minister, you just made the opposition's job much easier.

What you can do:

• Write a letter to your paper
• Visit the Twitter links for Cannan and Moore and let them know how you feel
• Vote in the CBC Question of the Day poll ("Is it appropriate for the Prime Minister to attend tonight's Stanley Cup game in Boston?")

PS: To the opposition, official and otherwise, you might also recall that in September 2009 Jim Flaherty used a government jet to fly him and his wife from Ottawa to Montreal to go to a party for Brian Mulroney. Please do you jobs and hold these jokers to account. Canadians of all political stripes are angered by politicians living high on the hog at our expense.

Progressives, aw heck, anybody in British Columbia's lower mainland area: how would you like to attend a Stephen Harper rally on Sunday? The very last Conservative rally of this the 41st federal general election will be held in Abbotsford tomorrow. We all know how welcoming the Conservative Party is so surely they won't mind if I help out their cause by sharing this event notice with the world:

You are invited to a special event hosted by the Conservative Party of Canada.

Our special guest for the event will be Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper!

The event is taking place on Sunday May 1st at the Cascade Aerospace Facility. It will begin at 7:00pm (doors open at 6:00pm). The Cascade Aerospace Facility is located at 1337 Townline Road, Abbotsford.

There is no cost for this event, but to attend you must pre-register by Saturday at 8pm. To register, please contact 604-534-1160 and leave a message with your name, civic address and telephone number and a volunteer will return your call.

You can also register online: www.conservativeevent.ca/abbotsford

Please note photo identification will be required at the door.

We hope to see you on Sunday, May 1st!

Those of you who aren't keen on being stuck in a hall full of people who find it ok to boo journalists or shout down reporter's questions might find it more rewarding to stake out a protest in the fresh air nearby.

Thank you secret "Conservative insider disgusted with my own party" for the heads up on this.

See also:

• Why are Harper supporters heckling the media? (April 30, 2011 - John Ivison, National Post) Party spindoctors suggest Mr. Harper likes the visuals of being surrounded by supporters but it lends the appearance of a lynch mob when the inevitable happens. One suspects the visuals of this morning's episode will be replayed on newscasts across the country and confirm many people's impressions of the Conservative Party as the home of anger, intolerance and blind partisanship.
• Harper rebuffs talk of government 'hypotheticals' (April 30, 2011 - CBC News) [When] pressed by reporters about what he would do if the next-biggest party was asked to form a government, Harper said he would not speculate about "hypothetical" scenarios following the election. The CBC's Terry Milewski faced supporters' boos when he attempted to ask Harper the question again.

The Liberal Party has obtained a hard copy binder of material representing what was known within the Canadian Alliance party as the Harper Quote Database. In the collection of three files attached to this article, there are almost 500 pages of scanned images in PDF format. You can also obtain the files from a higher speed download link provided by the Liberal party here.

A quick scan through Part 3, the largest collection of quotes and comments, located a number of my favorites which I have extracted and published here as well to a group Twitter stream #harperquotes. You can also find a sizable selection of quotations and references to the original files compiled by CBC News reporter Laura Payton: the Harper quotes dossier: a sample.

Note: I've edited the following down to fit the limited scope Twitter permits.

On the NDP Harper was at least somewhat prescient:

"... obviously Mr. Layton's leadership poses some interesting dynamics for the federal political scene." (2003)

On MPs in general:

"In fact, most MPs are bit players in today's parliamentary system"

"Why are MPs so supine? You might as well ask why cows are so passive. They are bred that way."

Certainly Harper's MPs and cabinet ministers are cowed. Bullied even. That's just how Stephen rolls.

On women in politics:

"Obviously the government thinks it's being clever by appointing women"

A comment directed at former PM Jean Chretien appointments to senate.

On Democratic Deficit and Reforming Parliament:

"I will get rid of the lobbyists, the spin doctors and the bagmen..."

He never did it, never got the job done. In fact, he put some of these bad folks into the Senate!

"what Canada needs is a system that separates the two branches of government along the American model"

Engaging in secret negotiations with David Emerson to 'cross the floor' less than 24 hours after Election 06, appointing Fortier to the Senate and into cabinet, are precedents both newly set and reinforced which push Canada closer to the U.S. model of an unelected cabinet. Look at Iraq, look at the U.S. financial system, look at their inability to provide health care to all their citizens and ask yourself "how is that working out"?

On Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

"I agree that serious flaws exist in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms"

You can read the Charter here.

On Coalitions:

"alliance of separate regional parties rather than a unitary national party is the most desirable and attainable goal"

"... make more sense is the gradual construction of an explicit alliance of opposition elements, or 'sister parties'"

As has been proven time and again, when it suits his purposes, Stephen Harper has no issues whatsoever with coalitions of parties working together to gain power.

On Education:

"I think we've vastly over-invested in universities."

Students: he's just not into you. If you look further at the relevant quote, Harper declares that the "vast majority" of Canadian students are unfit for a university education. Sorry.

On immigrants in mostly urban western ridings:

"people who live in ghettoes"

Immigrant communities Harper now courts for votes.

On Gun Control:

"I voted for [the gun bill] in principle at second reading."

Yes, Harper once voted for the long gun registry, but now he uses the registry as a scare tactic aimed at mostly rural voters; the strategy has proven to be so useful a tool for fund-raising that one wonders what the party will do when it finally does kill the registry.

On the Canada Health Act:

"the Canada Health Act has to change."

But how? Why won't you ever discuss?

"what we should be doing is not figuring out how we can have the most equal system..."

Harper has long argued that 'universality' is not desirable.

"co-payment, prepayment and all kinds of options that are frankly going to have to be looked at"

And he's open to anything including US-style user-pay health care.

"... having a system where you have as many tiers as possible"

No 2-tier health care system? Well how about 3-tier? 4-tier? 5-tier? The sky is the limit with Stephen Harper!

"Those who like an existing policy know why they like it... That's the welfare state."

Here Harper seemingly aims at most Canadians.

"I like my job as President of the National Citizens Coalition"

Where he agitated against "medicare"?

On joining George W. Bush's war in Iraq:

"security council members who are wavering on whether there's sufficient authority to use force are just completely wrong."

Only they were completely right.

"I don't give a damn about the polls [views of Canadians]."

Only 15% of Canadians thought we should be in Iraq; Stephen Harper doesn't give a damn about what the majority of Canadians think about any issue, especially not an issue as important as war. Harper would have committed Canada to that war if he were Prime Minister:

"we support the [Iraq]war effort and believe we should be supporting our troops and our allies and be there with them"

On BC's anti-smoking laws, if enough people ignore it:

"will simply break down, and it should."

On Keeping Politics Out of the Church:

"[Church] is not to promote a particular political party"

Odd, given Harper was recently campaigning at Vancouver's Broadway Alliance Church. But he isn't kind to all churches:

"After all, the Moderator of the United Church has nothing to do with religion."

Wow. Just wow.

Insulting broad swaths of Canadians:

"we will not stand for a second-tier country (Canada) run by a third-world leader with fourth-class values."

He's just not in to Canada, either.

"The real problem is the dogmatic and extreme agenda of the looney left".

The looney left? Who are you referring to? The 62% of Canadians which did not vote for you?

In period of on-going deficits:

"I do not intend to dispute in any way the need for defence cuts" (1995)

Wait one. We are in a period of on-going deficits, yet Harper is willing to spend even more on planes, trains and automobiles?

Why is the @PMHarper Twitter account, verified by Twitter as belonging to Stephen Harper, following the porn-industry related account @freepornpics?

Apparently @PMHarper has been following @freepornpics for quite some time. In the blog Morton's Musings, James C Morton (a candidate for the Liberals in Oshawa) apparently first noted the connection back on August 3, 2010.

Sure enough, the twitter relationship is still there as of this writing. I confirmed the linkage by using the Twitter Application Program Interface to download a list of numerical user ID's -- used internally by Twitter -- relating to the followers of @freepornpics, and sure enough @PMHarper's id is among those ids.

Stephen Harper's @PMHarper numerical twitter id is 7401202. @freepornpics numerical twitter id is: 38949870. With that information in hand we can search the list of numerical twitter ids for @freepornpics followers to see if @PMHarper's id is within the data. It is:

$ curl http://twitter.com/followers/ids.xml?screen_name=freepornpics >freepornpics-twitter-followers
$ grep 7401202 freepornpics-twitter-followers
<id>7401202</id>

It will probably comfort Stephen Harper to know that @freepornpics also returns the favour and follows @PMHarper right back:

$ curl http://twitter.com/followers/ids.xml?screen_name=PMHarper >pmharper-twitter-followers
$ grep 38949870 harper-twitter-followers
<id>38949870</id>

Apparently pornographers are interested in Stephen Harper too. That's quite a big blue tent Harper has, uh, erected.

One doubts that Stephen Harper gets up late at night to surf the internet for porn but he ought to at least face the question.

Help yourself to the images or data!

h/t to John Prince

Keeping it brief today. Here is what I believe is the best media quote of the day:

For a week now, the Conservative leader has been systematically hammering the theme that this election offers a stark choice between unrest and stability. To drive his message home, Harper has been blatantly creative with the facts, starting with his own manoeuvres as an opposition leader in a minority Parliament. Chantel Hebert, The Star

Emphasis mine.

Rarely do columnists out and out call any politician a liar let alone the Prime Minister, so when a respected national journalist takes that big step people ought to take notice.

By now it is old news that Stephen Harper will indeed go to the Copenhagen climate change summit, but only because U.S. president Barak Obama is attending.

What is not widely known is how desperately Stephen Harper had sought an excuse not to attend. Caught on film here's Stephen spending time in places he'd rather be than Copenhagen.

Stephen Harper would rather be in an Afghan prison than in Copenhagen. Click on image for full-size rendition.

The Liberals are running a mini-contest - submit your entries soon! See the Stephen Harper Anywhere But Copenhagen Photo Challenge page for more information.

I thought I'd seen it all but Stephen Harper dug himself a new low Monday, hiding behind our armed forces while launching his partisan missiles.

Let me just say this: Living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you. prime minister Stephen Harper

Andrew Coyne, a nominally Harper-friendly journalist, summed up the appropriate reaction to Harper's calculated move as this is just trash.

The truth, as is often the case when parsing Harper's words, is the polar opposite of what he said. No one leading the investigations into the truth are lobbing accusations at the military. Indeed the questions we all want answers to are mostly being directed at the Prime Minister's Office and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT). Harper stonewalls, and Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon refuses to stand give his account.

What is at issue are policies and orders of three federal governments as it pertains to our war in Afghanistan. Canadians want to know who knew what and when, and what policies were put or kept in place by who. We just want the truth.

A collection of reactions in the media:

Harper using soldiers as his shield (James Travers, The Star, Tuesday December 1 2009)

Stephen Harper isn't standing behind the troops; he's ducking behind them in an attempt to shift attention away from what politicians knew - and didn't do - about Afghanistan prisoner abuse.

Conservatives are now suffering from bad decisions, worse luck and an irrepressible instinct to put a bullet in the messenger. They are mired in the consequences of ignoring Afghanistan interrogation realities, failing to act when abuse became obvious and rushing to dump blame on scapegoats.

None of this faintly resembles standing up for the troops. That would require the simple, if highly unusual, declaration that politicians in Ottawa are ultimately accountable for what happened to prisoners in Afghanistan and that the loonie stops here.

Mission accomplished (Aaron Wherry, Macleans, Monday, November 30, 2009)

It is tempting to point out that the military does not act independently. That it acts, effectively, at the command of the government. That that government is presently led by Mr. Harper. And that whatever the Canadian Forces are presently accused of doing, they are said to have done so only at the direction of their superiors. But, of course, the Prime Minister was not attempting to posit an alternative understanding of government authority and the military. The Prime Minister was most likely doing here what the Prime Minister does when the questions prove too persistent or the accusations too uncomfortable.

Trash (Andrew Coyne, Macleans, Monday, November 30, 2009)

That's your prime minister talking, folks, accusing members of Parliament who raise legitimate questions about Canada's policy on the transfer of prisoners in Afghanistan of smearing "our men and women in uniform." There is no sense in which this is true. There is no interpretation you can give it that draws it near to the truth. It is not even close. No one that I am aware of has made any criticism of the soldiers who handed over the prisoners to the Afghan security services --only of those who issued the orders to do so.

• Using the troops as props (Jane Taber, The Globe and Mail, Monday November 30 2009)

• PM taking 'low road' in torture debate (The Star, Tuesday December 1 2009)

Our position in this election is we're not going to run deficits Stephen Harper, October 7 2008

During the recent federal election I posted a detailed analysis of federal government finances comparing this fiscal year to all years prior this decade. In addition to discovering that the federal government already had been running an operational deficit of between 13 and 23 billion dollars, and that such a deficit was virtually unheard of during this decade, I also observed Harper and Flaherty dancing around the issue as the election ground on:

Stephen Harper has repeatedly claimed his management is one of prudence, that his government is running a surplus, and on Tuesday he specifically said his government would not run a deficit (Reuters, Oct. 7 2008), after having danced around that issue of late (Calgary Herald, Oct. 6 2008).

Now the election is over, the hidden agenda, or hidden deficit, has come out of its cave:

• Harper mulls running deficit to stimulate economy, as G20 summit ends (Sheldon Alberts, Canwest News, November 15 2008)
• Expect deficit, Tories warn (The Gazette, Canwest News, November 19 2008)
• Flaherty to Stay as Canada Finance Minister, Hints at Deficit (Bloomberg, October 29, 2008)

Today Parliament's independent Budget Officer cites certain Conservative government policies as fundamental causes underlying the impending federal deficit Harper and Flaherty now say is inevitable, even though just a few short weeks ago during the election they claimed would never, ever, happen.

• Tories blamed for coming deficits: GST cut, spending driving Canada into red, Budget officer Kevin Page warns (David Akin, Canwest News, November 20 2008)
• Ottawa's '09 deficit may hit $14B (Les Whittington, The Star)
• Policies, not crisis seen causing Canada deficit (Louise Egan, Reuters, November 20, 2008)

We could be looking at a bugetary deficit of as much as 14 billion dollars. Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer, November 20, 2008

The report straight from the horse's mouth: Economic and Fiscal Assessment (Parliamentary Budget Office, Ottawa, Canada, November 20, 2008 - www.parl.gc.ca/pbo-dpb)

As the Harper government has been known to "disappear" documents, and parliamentary officers, it doesn't like, I've attached the above noted assessment to this post for future research purposes.

I’m running to win this election. If I don’t win this election, I’m sure my party will look for another leader. Stephen Harper, Saturday October 11, 2008

Please Canada, send Harper to the benches for good.

Full story from the Toronto Star | Commentary by Macleans' Kady O'Malley