From Time magazine - Verbatim Friday, Nov. 02, 2007

Maybe Stephen Harper SHOULD plagiarize this (Change the context to today's 2008 economy, and this statement is relevant today): 'You can run around like mad people wielding razor blades, but it is not the best way to resolve the problem.'

VLADIMIR PUTIN, President of Russia, speaking out against U.S. sanctions on Iran over the country's nuclear program

Or I can plagiarize you and say the word "the".

OR I can NOT bankrupt Ontario like Mr. Rae. <- directed at the whole conversation starter. (Mr. Rae)

Gotcha politics is dumb.

This election is turning into an episode of TMZ.

agree

I posted another example of Dion's plagiarism earlier today - but it's nothing compared to the latest one circulating on the web. The new one is from 'the Trusty Tory' and shows Dion stealing near half his speech to the United Nations Climate Change Conference from a scientist named Dr. Robert Corell.

Report is here: http://rjjago.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/the-moth...

Stephen,

FYI, Craig Docksteader has come forward w.r.t the 3rd plagiarism allegation against Harper. Apparently HE wrote the speech in question for Harper. So he was using his own work, it was not plagiarized in the slightest.

http://www.qualitywebdesign.ca/contact

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. Also, remember that great minds think alike and fools seldom differ!
(Disclaimer: I have no idea who first used the initial statement above but a simple google search found over 300,000 references and more than 100,00 references.)

Notwithstanding, they are both still true in the current context. And another one that is still true: The only poll that really counts is the one on election day. That is democracy.

Son of Elree

If the polls are to be believed, this country is in trouble and for the first time in many years we should be worried.

We hear so many lies and frantic gotcha games being played, by Liberals especially, with the media being willing accomplices. They never correct obvious lies spewed on their political programs either. CPAC is no better.
I watched in disgust Van Dusen's call in show after the English "debate", he allowed the Liberal female shill, Susan Smith, to butt in and over run everyone else for most of the show. It should be the job of the Host to correct false accusations as well, but they never do so they become facts. Ditto MDL and Newman. They're all out to skewer Harper and the Conservatives. It's palpable. It's Banana Republic tactics from where I sit.

This election is the dirtiest ever. It seems to stem from extreme desperation for the Liberals to get back to the trough. We should be very concerned about that, it should set off alarm bells. They are not in any shape to govern,
their past corruption hasn't been cleared up, they're still a divided mess. With internal problems, how do we get good governance from a party with people dueling over who should lead it?

It is to weep.

dirtiness of the liberals?? why because the tories are creating campaign ads with puffins pooping on them? common look at the smear campaign against Dion the tories have ran. Atleast the liberals (to the best of my knowledge) keep their ads about Conservatives policies etc. The Tories initially ran ads sole on how dion shruged in parliament, or the classic "this is not fair".

I really dont care it makes this election interesting, but call it fair. The tories ads are dirtier then the libs by no comparison..........

Interesting discussion. I agree with the common majority that this plagiarism thing is taking to much attention from real discussion about the issues, but that's the media for you. However i'm really dissappointed Harper copied Howard. If he knew or didn't, is not the point. It was a major parliamentary speech from Howard, as was Harper's two days later.

You can't compare this except above from Dion to Harper's speech. (I hope not considering Harpers speech was given as Opposition leader and while Canadian Democracy is Happening in the house of commons).

Also speeches about the scientific effects or climate change aren't valid examples of plagiarism anyways. Anyone can list global environment affects in any order and be accused of plagiarism.

Ice caps melting, more hurricanes, water levels rising, world ending...etc.

Type that into google and i'm sure you can find someone who wrote down the same thing. So accuse me of plagiarism now...

What Harper did was cannot be compared to this.. Harper is trying to get canada to go to war, and was to lazy to even write a speech about how he felt and why we should go..... that's sad.... leader my ass

Your accusation is a little ridiculous because , at the beginning of the piece you critique, attribution is given to
a report from the federal Department of Natural Resources. Therefore, this does not constitute plagiarism.

Why don't you do something constructive -- like telling the truth about the child care tax benefit being increased by the Liberals instead of perpetrating the lie of your leader that it would be cut. Or, you could tell people that your leader has again misrepresented the truth when he said the Liberals would raise the GST. They don't think it was the best way of giving money back to the families who could have used income tax cuts instead to pay for necessities like rent or food, but they never said they would raise it.

I've darn near had it with this country.

I was watching CPAC a few nights ago, and a viewer from Ontario called in and spewed something about "Why won't Harper release his platform? What is he hiding? Why doesn't he have daily press conferences to announce his platform like Dion and Layton?"

Peter van Dusen put her in her place and let her know in no uncertain terms that CPAC coveres Harpers daily press conferences, and that the CPC strategist sitting next to him had clearly stated that the CPC had released most of their platform already and all that remained was to put a staple on all the daily announcements and hand it over. Good on Peter, he wouldn't let her spew her drivel.

Of course watching any of the other networks, you wouldn't know this. I remember watching a show on CBC. It opened with 5 minutes of coverage of Dion's daily announcement and didn't mention any of his gaffes or problems of the day. Then there was about 5 minutes of coverage of CPC gaffes. the last 10 seconds of the piece mentioned the CPC's announcemnt for the day, with zero analysis or comment.

I guess that is the CBC's idea of balanced reporting. Praise the Liberals for half the time and slag the CPC the other half of the time.

Guess I'll block CBC off my dial again. I'm thinking of doing that with all of the major networks. They sicken me.

Speaking of Liberals and glass houses, wasn't the name of the cornerstone of the Liberal platform taken without permission....the Green Shift, and didn't legal action follow for infringement of copyright? Hypocrites.

Well, let's get this straight. Silly as those things are, Dion called for Harper to be fired from his party. I guess it's time to turn the tables and demand that the Liberal Party fire Dion.

The only difference: the Conservatives don't want to get rid of Harper, but the Liberals are itching to ditch their "leader".

So, you can imagine which call for firing has a greater chance of actually being followed up on ....

Excellent catch Stephen. It's obvious this kind of stuff happens every day and I'm glad somebody finally found a good, recent Liberal example to prove it. Watch the media bury this example and prove the double standard.

What about the phrase With Harper, you,re on your own, used by the Libs in a TV ad, which is liftefd from an Obama speech of a few weeks ago With Bush, you're on your own.

Quoting a few sentences from the same report is NOT the same as reading, word for word, the same speech enciting Australians and Canadians to GO TO WAR !!!

The speech was probably written by the Bush adinistration and then distributed to its puppet supporters around the globe!!!

Nice find! Made news on CJAD 800 here in Montreal pointing us to this website!

It's like I've been saying...

The "Liberals" and leftist groups are fear mongering over "climate change" no differently then others had done with some aspects of terrorism.

Meanwhile they fail to properly address either cause in a responsibly moderate way.

Which the Liberals are entirely incapable of.

People go on and on about how "neo-conservative" we are, without any real substantial understanding of that that means. Dion's Wife is far more "neo-conservative" in regards to terrorism in comparison the Conservative party.

but of course THATS suddenly okay cuz shes a Liberal?!?

people got to wake up and realize the "Liberals" aren't who they profess to be and probably never have been.
All a person has to do is look at the lengths they are willing to stoop to just to get back in power...

It's both disgusting and tragically pathetic that people are willing to follow them so blindly even to the point of resorting to a complete disregard of the facts. No matter how credible or truly neutrally independent...

what are you talking about. you just sound dumb. give some points or reasons....

Taylor cutowrth is on every blog in town withhis attack ad garbage. He enver produces one fact of any consequence.

What the eff are you guys talking about?

and wheres YOUR proof of this??

I go about everywhere I need to--to set straight much of the misinformation and propagandize BS thats being spewed out from both the extreme Right and PARTICULARLY the Left in this country.

It's funny how these guys try to call me out on things meanwhile they hide behind their anonymity while at the same time try to attack MY credibility with empty statements.

Apparently "[I never provide any] one fact of any consequence." ~Terry

Meanwhile, you say that without even providing anything to back that up.
Which I've been find to be more than typical of any Liberal supporter.

"what are you talking about. you just sound dumb. give some points or reasons...."

~New to this blog

There is a lot there in that post, could you be a little less vague?

Some of what I suggest may be just an opinion or a speculation, which can be wrong but are much more often right or occasionally just off by a bit. Never the less, the goal is to get people thinking out side of themselves and their own entrenched perspectives.

Not everything I say is gonna be 100% right or accurate as I am still taking in a near-constant flow of information through multiple means while I research into things.
And it so happens, I'm way ahead of both of you on this.

"Taylor cutowrth is on every blog in town withhis attack ad garbage." ~Terry

I've been starting to see these sorts of dismissive remarks about me else where and its always from the Liberal supporters, so I must be getting closer to the truth as its looking rather organized.
They get like this when they can't explain their positions or reasoning they resort to attacking.

Not much different to how the "Liberals" are like when in the HOC and committees...

I bet some of you are part of their campaigners or the even some MPs family members as such things have been suggested before.

like Gayle for instance and others, but I don't wish to speculate any further at this time.

No doubt, there are others reading this who know what I mean...

Aren't we defensive. Great Speech!

I thoroughly enjoyed your empty worded rant.

My Proof? For what? I never claimed anything except asking you for “points or reasons”. Obviously you have none.



"liberal fear mongers" ~ Taylor Cutfort

Wonderful!

Liberals believe in CLIMATE CHANGE, obviously! That’s fear mongering? I dunno a lot of scientists, believe in that.

"They get like this when they can't explain their positions or reasoning they resort to attacking."

Liberal's can explain their position about climate change. Climate change has been Scientifically proven!

where's your proof for these claims? :

"resorting to a complete disregard of the facts. "

Such as…..? no explanation, just rants…..

"People go on and on about how "neo-conservative" we are, without any real substantial understanding of that that means. Dion's Wife is far more "neo-conservative" in regards to terrorism in comparison the Conservative party."

I said: "give some points or reasons...."

where are they.. all you gave was a long winded rant...

funny how you say:

"Some of what I suggest may be just an opinion or a speculation, which can be wrong but are much more often right or occasionally just off by a bit. Never the less, the goal is to get people thinking out side of themselves and their own entrenched perspectives."

Firstly, get your facts straight then post! If you don’t know something, why are you acting like you know something!

1000s of scientist around the world believe in Climate change, if you don't that doesn’t mean liberals are fear mongers.

Secondly, If you want to make a point do it, but back it up with some reasoning or proof. Otherwise your words are nothing more than random fiction!

Thirdly, you say your intentions are to get people thinking? Great! I agree, discourse in this country is often lacking. So post information that will get people thinking. Don’t just rant random emotions on blogs, where the proof to your claims.

I'm really really busy saving the world so I'll have to address this in parts when I can.

""People go on and on about how "neo-conservative" we are, without any real substantial understanding of that that means. Dion's Wife is far more "neo-conservative" in regards to terrorism in comparison the Conservative party."" -me

This is a fair enough point for you to of called me on... actually the only one from my post.

That said, I'll address it later.

""Some of what I suggest may be just an opinion or a speculation, which can be wrong but are much more often right or occasionally just off by a bit. Never the less, the goal is to get people thinking out side of themselves and their own entrenched perspectives.""

~ me

This was said in regards to anything I post--but particularly what was said in regards to conspiracy theories/possible truths--both my own and others.

"1000s of scientist around the world believe in Climate change, if you don't that doesn’t mean liberals are fear mongers."

~ You, aptly named "New to this blog"

Anyone who knows my positions on the environment knows why I'm not gonna waste time tackling this ASAP.

But I'll say, the environment isn't something restricted to climate change.
What the Conservatives and even the Libertarians have proposed makes the most sense.

I know your gonna rag on me on for this saying its not an answer or decide to interpret it that way. Given all I've said, I can't be left to waste time on little squabbles like this.

This week is supposed to be my vacation time.

Looks to me like a cut and paste with a little re-working that gives it that whiff of plagiarism. Most honourable speech writers when caught would resign as we've seen. Better than having pot shots thrown at you by the media. But these are desperate times for the Liberals and their war rooms. When words don't come to mind the boiler plate mentality takes over. Like somehow environmental boiler plate is somehow better than law and order boiler plate. Even Warren Kinsella likes that ball hockey video clip. That's ironic.

ahahahahahahah you guys must be desperate. Is this the best you can come up with?

Just wait kids, there is much more Harper Plagarism to come.

So Disco - plagerism and the arts have become your defining issue in this election - just shows that Stephen Harper must have done a pretty good job of getting all your other "needs" met, huh.

I assume you agree??

The media won't be interested in checking this one out or even mentioning it. They're all on the bandwagon to insure Harper does not get anything close to majority. One would think the media people were not residents of this country by their irresponsible behaviour.

Right now the National Post is running excerpts of the just released book by the scorned woman ,Julie Couillard.
Looks like they've gone tabloid to sell papers. No matter how it's sliced, it's a he said, she said tale and the interest lies in the realm of dirty politics. They could at least hold off until the election is over but they choose crass meddling.
My subscription to both the Ottawa Citizen and the Post is canceled. We should not subscribe to printed rags practicing Banana Republic journalism in attempts to take down government by skewing the facts, printing one side of stories to manipulate opinion. We deserve better than that, we must demand better.

Why not LizJ..Harper has been practising yelow attack ads for the last two years and is now squealing like a stuck pig a sthe paybacks arrive.......hypocrisy is thy name.
The best protest would be to stop sending money to lying tories

"The media won't be interested in checking this one out or even mentioning it. They're all on the bandwagon to insure Harper does not get anything close to majority. One would think the media people were not residents of this country by their irresponsible behaviour."

Au contraire... they are very much residents of this country and have recognized the Harper and his neocons (yes, I read up on Leo Strauss so I know the ideology and the "noble lies" idea) can not be allowed to attain a majority government due to the damage they have done so far as a minority government and the worse things to come if they get a majority.

Also, what you call meddling I call providing factual information to the voting public.

Voilà, my work here is done !!

"I read up on Leo Strauss so I know the ideology ..."

You've got your Strausses confused maybe?
Sounds like you read up on Victoria Strauss: http://www.sff.net/people/victoriastrauss/

All Party's are using whatever it takes to get elected by using the lowest of tactics. Even so, what the Hey, if it gets results and one upmanship, what does it matter? Liberals are having trouble with signs in Ont., Cons are having trouble with signs in PEI with video included, and the MSN keeps rolling it out to serve their agenda. What the population needs to home in on, is the facts and ask themselves did this government produce results during its tenure as a minority? Obvious answer is - "YES". Mr. Dion sat on his thumbs and 43 bills passed parliament, now he wants to criticize Harper for his logical approach?
You had your chance Mr. Dion along with the rest of the junkyard dogs - and you missed it, so eat your kibbles and go to lay in a corner and do what dog's do.
ARJAY.

Doesn't this just go to how lazy many people are? Everyone seems to just regurgitate what they are feed with out digesting it and making it their own.

Remember when CTV carried this story and gave it prominence, where Bob Rae on Tuesday Sept.30, had this to say about plagiarism - Canadians want to know if Bob Rae still feels that way and whether he is embarassed (Bob Rae embarassed??) and betrayed by Stephane Dion. Canadians may learn volumes about the integrity of Bob Rae.
"This is a disgraceful performance by the leader of a political party there for all the world to see, and all the world is going to see it. They need to see it because they need to know what we're dealing with here," Rae told CTV Newsnet.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTV...

*yawn*

For those who maintain that Mr. Harper's speech was a "word for word" copy of PM Howard's, you should have a look at the two speeches side by side, not just the video prepared by the Liberals. As I posted yesterday on another blog:
"Word for word"?
Not quite. Go here and compare: http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/080930_harper_ho...

You will notice in this side-by-side comparison that there are several passages in Stephen Harper’s speech that are not found in Howard’s. Were they added by him? By his speech writers? I don’t know.

I decided to copy the speeches in their entirety, Howard’s onto one word processing document, Harper’s onto another. Howard’s fits into 1 and 1/2 pages, Harper’s into 3 and 1/4 pages.

Needless to say, that’s using the same exact format in both cases. Unfortunately my word-processing application does not appear to have a word counter.

I am not pleading FOR plagiarism, borrowing texts or other. What I am disputing is using the phrase “word for word” in the instance of Mr. Harper's speech. It is clearly not the case.

Furthermore, in addition to embarrassing Mr. Harper, the Liberals and the Bloc in particular are using the borrowed speech to prove that had Mr. Harper been PM at the time, Canada would be in Iraq. Bob Rae said that the speech proves Canada has lost its voice on the world stage.

This too I have said before, so forgive the repetition:
1. Mr. Chretien was willing to participate in the Iraq War if the United Nations sanctioned it. Thus Canada's voice would have been subordinate to the UN's.
2. Since we're working on futile hypotheses ... If Trudeau had been PM during WWII, Canada would not have participated in the defeat of the Nazis, since he opposed conscription and supported the pro-Nazi Vichy regime of Marshall Pétain in occupied France.
3. If PM Mackenzie King had been more courageous, and his Immigration Minister Frederick Blair less prejudiced, a larger number of Jews would have found refuge in Canada pre-war and during the war.
4. If the Liberals had been serious about Kyoto, they would have devised a plan to implement it, since they were in a majority position.
5. "If cows had wings, we’d all run for cover." I thought I'd just throw that in.
6. Getting back to more contemporary times ... if the Liberals had dug around a bit more they would have found a letter written by Mr. Harper in 2005 to The Washington Times, where he revised his position on Iraq. Mr. Harper wrote:
"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."
See? If Mr. Harper had known then (2003) what he knew later (2005) his position would have been different, OK?

Good work, Gabby - especially on the last point.

I think this whole plagiarism thing needs to be clarified as to what are the acceptable ground rules in political speeches.

And who is to blame if plagiarism does occur? The person who gave the speech or the one who wrote it?

Progressive Conservative, it's hard to tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I hope you are. Cuz the alternative, that you are seriously typing that with a straight face... is rather disturbing. So I'm gonna go ahead and believe you are simply satirizing a Liberal supporter.

Well, I'm not a Liberal supporter, I'm a progressive conservative as my monikor may or may not indicate. Unfortunately my party seems to have vanished, and the closest party to my values is the Liberals. (Progressive socially, economically prudent)

But, I find Mr. Dion to be much more open and honest than Mr. Harper. Simply the fact that all Harper events are closed door with no opportunity for public input, as opposed to Dion's town hall events which encourage the public to speak their mind.

I would prefer an open accountable government over a secretive Harper one.

I too prefer the Liberals, because I never get bags of cash delivered to my house when Harper is in charge.

great point!!!

If this is the report - http://www.adaptation.rncan.gc.ca/assess/2007/p... , then the phrases "hotter summers and poorer air quality in urban Ontario", 'may face retreating glaciers and snow loss on its mountains" , "will continue to struggle with drought" and "potentially causing water rationing in urban areas" do not occur anywhere in the text. They are particularly worded summaries lifted directly from the news article.

If it isn't the right report, I apologize for wasting your time, although you might try the same analysis on the right article if I got it wrong.

That is the report. The website that contains it was last updated on March 7th, 2008 and the report is a year summary of 2007 for climate change. The Canwest article cites Norm Catto as one of the main authors.

http://adaptation.nrcan.gc.ca/assess/2007/aut_e...

Yahbutt, but, but, Harper's "John Howard" speech just proves he takes his marching orders from Bush. Doesn't it? Well, doesn't it? Because Harper = Bush = Fascism = Big Oil = 9/11 was in inside job.

Dion cites his source for the information. I very much doubt that an academic such as himself would steal anything from a news source as suspect as Canwest. I think it's more likely that they both commented on the same article. Dion is a brilliant man, he certainly does not need to take his speech points from an unprofessional Conservative agency. (Izzy must be spinning is his grave)

On the other hand, there is no doubt that Harper copied the australian PM's speech. According to the G&M, "He alone (or with an adviser or two) will draft key statements" so I think most people believe that the aide who took the heat for Harper's plagiarism was just a fall guy. Harper's definitely the guilty one. Dion just seems much more trustworthy and honest.

The report isn't the source under dispute here. Dion seems to use the same wording to summarize the report as was used by Canwest.

Dion appears to have copied from Canwest, not from the report. The report is not important here.

I respectfully disagree, to me it looks like they both probably took information directly from the source. It is not unusual, when citing a source, to directly quote from it. However, because the article in question is a speech we don't see the quotation marks around it. I would be interested in seeing the original report and comparing its summary to Dion and Canwest's version.

"And the Prairies will continue to struggle with drought, affecting agriculture and potentially causing water rationing in urban areas." This is the only line that is the same in both. The rest is not evidently plagiarised.

If you can compare the speech to the original speech, (I haven't the time, nor the interest), it would be an interesting continuation of this story.

However, all in all, this is an eyebrow raising find, well blogged.

Isn't it possible that they both stole the wording out of the report...which they both referenced?

Looks like they both took wording and ideas out of a report they both reference outright. Not that big of a deal to anyone not looking to force a plaigerism angle to counter one launched on their own guy.

I'll take some of that action, too, Terry...85 seats,.....

I'll bet Gagliano's pension on it, they get more.....

You're getting really desperate aren't you. Niks polls are scaring the hell out of you. get used to being in second place as Harper has just about destroyed the revived Tory party. I predict your guys will win around 85 seats

Niks Partner is Doug Young former Lib. Cab. Min. in Cretien's gov. he axed the EI and was defeted by NDP Yvon Godin. Nick was also in Dion's Camp at the leadership. look at the footage from CBC at the end of the convention in 2006 and you will see him stand next to Dion. Nick got it close in 2006 pure luck

Not only did he get it close he got it bang on and did the same in 2004.....everyone knows he's the best at natonal political polling.

I want in on this too. Terry's declaring victory before the war is over (kind of like Bush). Still trailing by 4 Terry don't get too excited.

Let's put some money on that Terry. I predict more than 85. What odds are you giving me?

Hey stephen still thinking more than 85 seats..........you guys are falling apart. Breaks my heart.

You will possibly have less than 10 seats coming out of the maritimes and Quebec. Pretty scary for a party of ideolgues.

No odds from me. you were the front runner so you should give me odds. At 34% right now and dropping the will ose many many seats. I say the Cons well come out of Quebec and the Maritimes with less than 10 seats.

Don't know about this Stephen. Both passages cite the same source. I think the whole plagiarism thing is stupid and the fact that the media is giving endless attention to it is farcical but I don't see the problem with the above example

wow

clearly you dont know what plagiarism is

Dion references the report in the speech. Both are quoting facts from the same report.

Surely you can do better than this Stephen...

Umm, he would have to say: "The report stated....." for a correct reference. Anyone that has a grade 12 (sorry, grade 13 for some of you) education should know that. The section cited by Stephen makes it appear that the report's summary is in fact Stephan's summary.

Of course the whole issue is rather foolish, people in politics borrow words, phrases, key message, spin, etc.... all the time.

What is important, in my opinion, is the substance of the statements and does the person saying the words really believe them.

Didn't Dion also 'borrow' his environment policy from Suzuki??

Ah but Jimmy - plagerism is plagerism right, isn't that what you and your ilk have been touting all over the internet and headlining the news including making ads about. Come on Jimmy - all's fair in politics, huh.

People who live in glass houses.....
Cheers Bubba

At least it wasn't word for word like Harpers speeches.

Read it again, it was 'word for word' Dion just moved the sentences around.

Please email this to Bob Rae ASAP!

Excellent work.

Now, let's see it on the front page of The Red Star and a lead story on CBC.

Call the Canadian Press....since it's not Harper, they probably won't be interested.

Stephen, great find. Let's get this information into the main stream media to bump the Liberals with. Great Work!