Friday, October 03, 2008

More Harper plagiarism, this time from Mike Harris

Stephen Harper, Mike Harris, plagiarism
Well, well. I suppose we should have expected that. Fresh off the news that Stephen Harper's Iraq speech was copied more or less verbatim from that of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, it was bound to happen that people had a look at his other speeches. Sure enough, j-rad has now discovered more evidence of plagiarism, this time from Mike Harris. Several sentences from Harper's speech in Feb. 2003 on the Federal budget are lifted straight out of a speech of Mike Harris to the Montreal Economics Institute.

Several questions arise. First, and most obviously, who is responsible? Harper found a convenient scape-goat to fall on his sword: Owen Lippert, who resigned. Is he also responsible for for this mistake? Or is there another bumbler on Harper's speech writing team?