While in Dieppe, Dion accused Harper of using a racially charged phrase when responding to a question I asked him two weeks ago while he was campaigning in Iqalauit.
Harper was up there to announce the creation of a new northern Canada regional economic development agency. I put it to him that such agencies were prone to pork barrel abuse in the past by the Liberals and, you could make the case, by his own government.
In his response, he said, there was some merit to some of the historic criticism and then said “What we have found is that while regional development agencies can go off the reservation — can go in some bad directions — they also tend to be pretty good compared to most federal bureaucracies at actually having a handle on what local development needs really are.”
My colleague Juliet O'Neil, travelling with Dion campaign, reports this afternoon:
“You know that he doesn’t believe in our regional agencies like ACOA (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) and he said recently offensive language about aboriginal peoples, showing that he — I don’t want to repeat what he said, I don’t want to say that,” Dion said. “I just want to say that we will bring back the Kelowna accord to ensure that aboriginal people in Canada will be partners to have a strong Canada.”
Manitoba Liberal Tina Keeper, an aboriginal TV star, demanded an apology from Harper last week for “his use of an insulting and demeaning term to criticize regional development agencies.”
You can listen here to my question and Harper's response which contained the phrase the Liberals that some Liberals found offensive. [You'll need Apple's QuickTime to listen to this]
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