Stephen Harper has been prime minister for less than five years, yet he is attempting to rewrite Canadian political history by claiming to have visited more towns than any other well-travelled, long-serving former prime minister, like Sir Wilfrid Laurier (15 years) and William Lyon Mackenzie King (21 years), leaders who crisscrossed the country by train and hit every small town and city on summer-long whistle-stop tours.
In his study on Canadian political campaigning “Fights of Our Lives,” John Duffy showed what Laurier’s summer tour looked like, a tour Stephen Harper has never matched.
Last year, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff out-travelled Stephen Harper all year long, holding 483 public events across the country in 2010.
During the summer alone, Michael Ignatieff held an unprecedented, modern political tour with the Liberal Express, listening to Canadians in every province and territory, visiting 102 cities and towns, and holding 166 public events while travelling over 57,000 kilometres. While accompanying Mr. Ignatieff for four full days this summer, I also watched our leader answer hundreds of unfiltered questions from citizens of all political stripes and tackle no-holds-barred questions from reporters all day and late into the night.
Mr. Ignatieff will be launching another tour this week, a “winter tour” visiting 20 communities in 11 days.
Compare the above to Stephen Harper’s “summer tour” in which he failed to hold a single public event in Quebec in over 100 days, and in which he visited a paltry 10 communities outside of Ottawa from June to mid-August, meetings which were replete with pre-screened lists of media questioners, security barriers, and very little contact with the average Canadian.
Canadians deserve a more responsive government. Canadians deserve better.
David Bertschi is a federal Liberal candidate in Ottawa-Orléans.
