Star Editorial Writers Need To Read Polls

I don't disagree that Harper is picking flyshit out of pepper in his attacks on the ineptness of Dion and the character of the liberal government but sometimes it is necessary to keep the issue alive and while the polls can change on one misstep the current ones show Harper surging ahead.

Harper takes low road
March 03, 2007

Another week, another string of cheap political attacks from Stephen Harper, who sounds less prime ministerial with every passing day.

After savaging Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion with attack ads that suggest he is a "traitor," Harper continued this past week to play fast and loose with the facts, levelling baseless patronage charges against two Liberal Members of Parliament.

In debate over changes to the Immigration and Refugee Board, Harper accused MP Marlene Jennings of putting her spouse on the board and Lucienne Robillard, a former immigration minister, of appointing her ex-spouse. If true, these would be serious breaches of ethics.

But Robillard's husband was appointed to the board in 1990 under a former Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney. And Jennings' husband joined the board before she was even elected to Parliament.

This comes after Harper tried to smear Liberal backbench MP Navdeep Bains by insinuating his family was linked to terrorism, implying that is why the Liberals opposed renewing two excessive anti-terror measures enacted after 9/11 that were set to expire.

And the Conservatives kicked off this programmed nastiness by airing a series of unprecedented pre-election French-language attack ads that slyly implied Dion is a criminal who would sell out Quebec's interests.

These drive-by smears are unworthy of Harper's office. Partisan politics is never a pretty business. But the Tories are plumbing new depths.

Many Canadians will be offended by this persistent bullying, and coarse patent distortion. It reflects a dark side of Harper's political personality that is unsettling.