Martin using flag to score 'cheap political points': Harper
Last Updated Fri, 11 Jun 2004 23:00:24 EDT

OTTAWA - Conservative Leader Stephen Harper continued to mock the Liberal
Party's attack ads against him Friday night, criticizing its fading image
of a Canadian flag as an attempt to scare voters.

Speaking at a rally in Ottawa, Harper said voters won't be fooled by the
thirty second spot that says the Tory leader would have sent Canadian
troops to Iraq. The ad shows a handgun pointed at viewers, warning Harper
would loosen gun control laws. It also warns that Harper would limit a
woman's right to choose on abortion and that he wants to ally with the Bloc
Quebcois. The spot ends with the fading image of a Canadian flag.

Harper joked that the ads will backfire because they'll remind voters of
the federal sponsorship scandal that saw millions of federal dollars go to
Liberal-friendly ad firms.

"[Voters] will ask themselves who for paid for this. Who's profiting
from this?" "Why are they pointing a gun in my face and the face
of my children? And why is the Canadian flag being used to score cheap
political points by these guys?" "I say to Paul Martin: 'Stop
wrapping corruption in the flag and stop using the flag to divide us. The
flag is not a Liberal emblem it belongs to all Canadians.'

Harper made the comments in wake of an open letter by Barry Yeates,
ex-director of political operations for the Canadian Alliance. Yeates said
he is "increasingly apprehensive of the vacuous platform and social
conservative agenda now being purveyed by the newly formed Conservative
party."

"I think the views expressed by a number of Conservative candidates
and party officials, on topics as diverse as abortion, sexual orientation,
bilingualism and immigration verge on intolerant. I am therefore deeply
concerned about what a Stephen Harper government could mean for
Canada."

At the rally, Harper stressed that it's his goal to become the "prime
minister of all Canadians." "My goal is not to become the prime
minister of Conservatives. I want to be the prime minister of young and
old, men and women, francophones and anglophones, aboriginals and new
Canadians."


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