Harper Turns "Nixonian"

[HeresyLives]

PM threatens Ignatieff with old tapes

May 28, 2009 04:30 AM

Richard J. Brennan
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA–In a move described as "Nixonian," Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested he would release potentially damaging videotapes of Michael Ignatieff after the Liberal leader called on Harper to fire Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

During question period yesterday, Harper told the Commons he had lots of videotapes featuring Ignatieff, raising the spectre of using them to discredit the opposition leader before and during the next election campaign.

"I cannot fire the Leader of the Opposition and with all the tapes I have on him, I do not want to," he said.

Ignatieff described the comment as the "most Nixonian" of Harper's many remarks to him. "Every day that goes by, he's more like Richard Nixon," Ignatieff told reporters.

While U.S. president, Nixon installed secret audio recording systems in the Oval Office, his cabinet room and at Camp David and surreptitiously recorded hundreds of conversations from February 1971 through July 1973.

"We are in the middle of the most serious economic crisis since the Second World War and the Prime Minister ... is wasting his time listening to tapes of me," Ignatieff said.


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/641670