PARIS (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to Cyprus where he intends to take up to 120 evacuees from Lebanon home to Canada on his government plane.
Harper announced the surprise side trip on his week-long European diplomatic tour after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday afternoon.
The surprise change in itinerary came as the Harper government is under intense criticism for perceptions that Canada has been slow to ensure the safety of its estimated 50,000 citizens in the Lebanon.
I read this as a frank admission that the government has failed on this issue. However, from a strategic point of view, Harper shows great political sauvy with this “stunt”. What could be better than watching our Prime Minister personally evacuating stranded Canadians? I wonder if he will be wearing his green fatigues for the photo-op?
update
The media smells it too:
In response to questions, Harper denied the trip was a photo opportunity.
"It's more than a symbolic trip," he said. "There's a need for air support in Cyprus. Freeing up seats, we will have a significant number of seats to help the situation.
"I think criticism in this type of situation, given all the complexities, is inevitable one way or another," Harper added. "We believe there is a real need here. . . . We believe it's the right thing to do."
19 comments:
You would leave 100 Canadians in Cyprus to spite Stephen Harper. Classy. Are you that desperate now?
Since you joined the Liberals your writing has had the equivalent of a nervous twitch whenever Harper does anything about anything.
The British are sending six naval ships, VC10s, Tristars, C-130s and (wait for it) C-17s to evac half the number of people Canada must.
If Canada hadn't dawdled on buying more C-130s to replace the life-expired C-130Es under the Liberals (or better yet C-17s) the other CF Airbuses currently supplying Afghanistan could currently be on the tarmac at Larnaca or Akrotiri.
At least unlike the Americans the Tories aren't proposing to make the evacuees pay part of the cost. (Today's New York Times)
mark
With all due respect, if you don't see the political transparency here you're blind.
"Since you joined the Liberals your writing has had the equivalent of a nervous twitch whenever Harper does anything about anything."
Check back, my "twitching" has been consistent before and after :)
Boy are you getting the cons all riled up !!!!
Nice photo op. for Harper, I would I would say.
By the way, how does he choose the 120 to go on the flight?
This is definitely a photo op. It is also a pretty good use of the resources available in the area. What I wonder is, how many more Canadian evacuees will they be able to return home if our PM and his retinue choose to fly back to Canada from Paris aboard a scheduled airline flight and send the Government plane on to Cyprus without them?
"This is definitely a photo op. It is also a pretty good use of the resources available in the area."
The thought process defined.
As if yesterdays "tears at the grave" wasn't classy enough today will bring 100 new Conservative party members home to Canada.
Malcolm
PS: I hear the in flight movie will be Private Ryan
scottie
read my blog - you'll find Harper gets no favours from me (nor does Layton), for example on the attempt to exclude the media from CFB Trenton.
Just because I think Harper is doing something right for once doesn't make me a Tory.
That said, I think the seat Harper's photographer will be occupying (and his communications staffers) could have been emptied...
For all the criticism that Liberal hacks and the Liberal-biased media are throwing at the PM, what would the Liberals have done or what would they be able to do if they were in power? What is their solution for moving tens of thousands people at once halfway around the world on a moment's notice?... (silence)... oh, there's all our military ships to help them out - oh wait, the Liberals cut our military to the bone ... (silence)...
As I recall, after the tsunami in December 2004, the Martin government moved waaaayyy slower than the current government's reaction in trying to help Canadians there.
"What I wonder is, how many more Canadian evacuees will they be able to return home if our PM and his retinue choose to fly back to Canada from Paris aboard a scheduled airline flight"
Under RCMP Security Regulations, the Prime Minister of Canada is only permitted to fly on military controlled airplanes.
If Harper did not want this to be seen as a photo-op he should have left his communications people and his staff photographer behind instead of taking them with them denying the use of their seats for evacuees. After all he would have gotten lots of press once his plane returned to Canada with the evacuees and I am sure there would have been photographers galore to take pictures of the PM helping out stranded Canadians in need.
Sorry, but I have to agree with Steve here, this is a photo-op and damage control for the hit he took in the Canadian Lebanese community in particular and the Muslim/Arab population generally when he called Israel's conduct "measured" last week. If Harper really was interested in helping retrieve stranded Canadians he would mobilize ALL the government's planes/Challengers and deploy them along with his own to recover Canadians, yet to date I have not seen any evidence that this is occurring.
While I will say this is good for those 120 lucky people getting a ride with the PM out of there, I wonder what all the others that do not get such a privilege are going to be thinking while they wait to be evacuated? Especially since it looks like there was no contingency planning put into place in case the ME heated back up, not to mention the slow response last week to this need as well as it taking a Liberal MP first putting out the foreign affairs number for Canadians to call instead of Minister MacKay and the CPC government. Personally I think Harper would be doing a lot more if he were to do everything he can to make the bureaucracy work in this situation instead of jetting around trying to look like a hero in all of this. This is using a tragedy for partisan political points, something the Conservatives called disgusting and contemptible when it was the Liberals. Got to love the commitment to their principles...NOT!
crawler
"For all the criticism that Liberal hacks and the Liberal-biased media are throwing at the PM"
You guys are rich with your "left-wing" media crutch. Take a gander at the socialist paper The National Post and its headline- "Evacuation plan riddled with disorder, delays"
Give it rest!
scotian
I think its great that Harper is using this plane to evacuate people. The problem for me is the sequence in logic. Was the impetus pure principle, or damage control? The answer lies in past patterns, which clearly suggest political motivation first, followed by the added humanitarian angle. Call me cynical, or call me wise to the game. It is still an open question whether this is a government or a slick marketing campaign.
Steve:
Agreed. If he had let the photographer and communications people back and only taken his security staff then I would be more willing to believe this was motivated first out of a desire to try to help. I would still believe there was some degree of damage control underway but for the most part I would give him the benefit of the doubt. However, there is zero need other than for partisan political purposes to bring those staffers along and tie up the seats they are occupying instead of having them for evacuees.
There is also nothing brave about flying into Cypress, yet I have already seen some comments online about how brave this is of Harper. Well I suppose if one believes that some in the evacuees might be sleeper agents of terrorist groups one can make that argument, but that would be really stretching it.
It is though the fact he clearly pissed of the Canadian-Lebanese groups in this country that makes this look like damage control. Not to mention the pissing off of most of the Arab/Muslims populace in this country as well by being so one-sided in his endorsement of the actions of Israel in this. I mean really, so far it seems like more civilians have been killed than militants, which given the precision weaponry the Israeli military has to use seems rather questionable. Not to mention the massive destruction of the infrastructure throughout the country right from the start making it so much more difficult for innocent civilians to get out of the way of the fighting. If they were so concerned about escaping enemies why not take out most of the bridges, leave one or two intact, and watch them looking for enemies and letting the bulk of the populace get out, unless one believes that most of the civilians are actually part of Hezbollah, something I have not seen credible evidence to back up.
One last thing about this has bothered me from the beginning, and I expect it bother most Muslims/Arabs, that being this was ostensibly about two captured Israeli soldiers, not civilians, soldiers. Now, whenever I have seen terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians I have seen much commentary about how cowardly that is instead of attacking military targets. So what happens when military targets are hit instead of civilian ones? Well we saw that last week. Seems very much like head you lose tails we win logic being applied, and to call that acceptable and the response of Israel "measured" really seems more than a little unreasonable.
Did Israel have a basis for response? Yes. This though has clearly been shown to be a long standing plan drawn up and detailed over many months, well before these soldiers were taken. Therefore this response is using those soldiers as an excuse to launch a far greater than is appropriate to the circumstances attack on Lebanon itself. Yet Harper saw this as measured, and even after the Canadians civilians died he refused to walk back from that, so he really honked off a lot of Lebanese and Arab Canadians and had to do something to try and repair his reputation with them, and this aiding of a fraction of one percent of the evacuees appears to be it.
Harper has shown time and again his obsession with controlling his image in the media and what the public sees, anyone that tries to deny this clearly cannot be considered credible on this point. Is that automatically a bad/evil thing? Not necessarily, but it does tend to cause many to be suspicious since no one likes having their bad points seen if they can help it, that is just human nature. In a head of government that becomes an even more important consideration I believe. Given his actions to date since he was elected PM in this area it is rather difficult to accept there is not political partisan objectives being factored into this rescue effort of his, and his taking that photographer and communications people only makes that appear that much more reasonable a conclusion to come to. Worse, it makes it appear these considerations are the primary concerns and not the humaitarian aspect.
If there is one thing the Harper government has shown me to date it is that there is no level of cynicism too great when considering the actions of this government, especially when it comes to the public image it presents on anything. I find this government even worse than the last few federal governments on this point, even worse than both Mulroney and Trudeau governments, as I am old enough to remember this about both of them as well. It really makes me suspicious.
While Harper might have to travel on a mil aircraft it didn't have to be the Airbus. One of Jean Chretien's Challengers could have made the trip to pick him up.
Apparently the PM's comms staff will be acting as stewards since the plane was carrying military stewards for 40 not 120. However it's likely since they would not be trained that their role would be limited to serving the passengers with water/blankets/food etc. while the military stewards performed supervisory and safety roles.
scotian
I remember last year when Al Gore very quietly brought a plane into Louisiana to pickup Katrina survivors. No press, in fact the entire operation was covert. It only came out a couple of days later, and not from anyone associated with Gore. That is a pure motive in my mind, an opportunity Harper missed.
mark
We may disagree, but I still respect your perspective.
Steve V said...
"scotian
I remember last year when Al Gore very quietly brought a plane into Louisiana to pickup Katrina survivors. No press, in fact the entire operation was covert. It only came out a couple of days later, and not from anyone associated with Gore. That is a pure motive in my mind, an opportunity Harper missed."
12:12 AM
EXCELLENT example! That is the sort of thing which tells me which is the main motivator, publicity or substance. Gore's Katrina trip felt like the latter, this feels like the former.
Given the fact that he dumped the press and the diplomatic protocol for a head of govt to go anywhere, there's no way the same quiet in-out could have happened compared to a guy who was no longer an office holder.
Importantly, the Globe reports Stephen Harper's ridealong may have actually screwed with the evac timetable...
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