Green Party accuses Harper of "BREATHTAKING HYPOCRISY"

New Glasgow: Leader of the Green Party Elizabeth May issued a
statement today accusing Prime Minister Stephen Harper of
"breathtaking hypocrisy."

"Mr. Harper has not shown himself to be overly bound to his own
promises, but one might imagine he would honour a law he insisted on
passing," noted Ms. May. "He broke his promises on the full range of
accountability measures, leaving his ministers' doors open to
lobbyists. He broke his promise to Income Trust investors to never
levy a tax on their retirement savings. He broke his promise to
Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to honour contracts for
off-shore revenue sharing. And he has completely ignored laws he did
not like when passed by Opposition parties, such as the Kyoto
Implementation Act. With yesterday's comments about ignoring his own
promise enshrined in law to move to fixed election dates, Mr. Harper
has taken hypocrisy to dizzying heights."

"Mr. Harper is quoted as saying (by Canadian Press) that 'They (the
Opposition Parties) have no intention of respecting the fixed
election date.' Let's be clear. The only party whose actions are
constrained by Mr. Harper's law is his own party. The law has the
effect, which Mr. Harper crowed about at the time, of denying him, as
sitting Prime Minister, the option of bringing down his own
government before October 2009. The law contemplated that as a
Minority government, it could well fall sooner than Mr. Harper's
date. There are no constraints in the law on the action of the
Opposition. Thus, the charge that they have no intention of
respecting his law is absurd.

"For months it has been clear that Mr. Harper was chafing at the
limitations he imposed upon himself. His government has out-lasted
projections for its demise. He is running on empty -- no new ideas,
no vision, no plan -- or, rather, at least not one he could sell to
the Canadian public from a minority perch. As a Minority claiming
difficulty in pursuing an agenda, his record of devastating cuts to
key sectors, from Kyoto programmes to the arts, the savaging of
public institutions and assaults on the civil service, suggest a
rather effective exercise of minority power.

"Hoist with his own petard, he has been acting like a bully boy,
taunting the Official Opposition to bring him down. And, finally,
his true colours: He is not going to be constrained by a law he
passed intended to demonstrate his moral superiority over previous
Prime Ministers whom he lambasted for doing exactly what he now
contemplates. Bringing down his own government at a time of his choosing."


"The Green Party of Canada will welcome an election when it
comes. But in Mr. Harper's posturing about a dysfunctional
parliament, we will not allow voters to forget that it was his
combative and belligerent approach, his dictatorial style, his
300-page instruction book to Conservative MPs for how to disrupt
committee proceedings, that have led to this session of Parliament
being a shameful abuse of Canadian Parliamentary tradition." said Ms. May.