“What You Should Have Said” will be another occasional series on this site wherein I offer a factual reality check and second draft of remarks made by a public or political figure regarding any number of issues or recent events.
The Globe and Mail‘s Bill Curry offers the following quote from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on yesterday’s UK election in today’s Ottawa Notebook:
‘I’ve been managing what they call a hung Parliament for four-and-a-half years now. I think managing one hung Parliament is enough,’ Mr. Harper said in response to a question from Canadian reporters travelling with him in Croatia.
In reality, Harper hasn’t been “managing” anything at all. He is the leader of an obstructionist government that has prorogued Canada’s Parliament twice in as many years.
The first as part of a tantrum when the Liberal Party, New Democratic Party, and Bloc Québécois threatened to form a coalition government shortly after the 2008 election. And the second late last year because his party apparently needed to devote their undivided attention to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Running from your problems is not a form of management — something the growing list of scandals, incidents, and alienated civil servants and organizations can attest to.
What Harper should have today said is this:
I wish the all of the newly elected members of British Parliament the best in forming a new government in the coming days, and working together to face the challenges that the people of the United Kingdom have sent them there to address.
Or, at the very least, confined his remarks to hockey.
Great article. Give Harper some credit, he is a master at manipulating parliament. Any minority leader with dictatorial aspirations ought to read his handbook.
Thanks.
Haha, that’s if he ever gets around to putting out a handbook — he’s been writing a book on hockey for the last ten years or something.