Officials with the Prime Minister's Office would not comment on whether Liberal, NDP or Bloc Québécois leaders had been invited. But spokespersons for Liberal Stéphane Dion and New Democrat Jack Layton confirmed yesterday they had not been invited.
Yesterday, Liberal officials accused Harper of breaking with "parliamentary tradition" by refusing to ask opposition politicians to come along.
Layton was hoping to take part but "Mr. Harper hasn't been in the habit of inviting the other leaders to these sorts of events ... and that is quite unfortunate," said Karl Belanger, his spokesperson.
The tradition is hit and miss.
It took a public relations debacle to convince former prime minister Paul Martin to attend VE-Day celebrations in Holland in 2005 – and have the three opposition leaders tag along.
Martin had cancelled his plans for the trip, citing fears the opposition might topple his minority government. He changed course and invited the three rival leaders after public accusations that political leaders were ignoring Canada's veterans.
Earlier, in 2004, Liberals say Martin invited Harper and Layton to France to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion – during a federal election – but both stayed in Ottawa
Before that, prime minister Jean Chrétien took opposition leaders to New York after the terror attacks in 2001.
Senator Norm Atkins's father fought at Vimy, making him one of the few federal politicians with a direct tie to the famed battle. Even he wasn't invited.
"It was something I would have thought that Veterans Affairs or the government would have given special attention to," Atkins said. He will make the trip after arrangements were made for him to attend on behalf of a Senate committee.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/198073
Seems that he has decided that it didn’t look good and so has now “invited” representatives from the opposition. See………
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=75920b71-714f-40bd-97e8-9a3c6952004e&k=29102
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 2, 2007]
Note: http://www.thestar.com/...
http://www.canada.com/t...
Harper Kids Off To Vimy Celebration
Posted on Saturday, March 31 at 14:48 by RuralContributed By
Topic
Article Rating
(0 votes)
Options
Stumble It!Comments
view comments in forum
Page 1
commemoration ceremony? Do they need his permission to go? Or is it a
matter of money? If they are invited guests of the PM he pays, if they go on
their own they pay? I would think that if it is important to them they would
just declare they are going out of respect and if someone offers to pay then
bonus.
Far too much attention is paid to who has the power to say who does what,
common sense should be dusted off in this country at all levels. As for the
kiddies, well what else do you do on spring/Easter Break when you're the PM's
kids? Perhaps they will get a glimpse of what happens when some men decide
for others that war is the only option? I think this is a red herring, he took the
kids instead of the politicians, so what; maybe he prefers their company, you
would hope that a father might, but it shouldn't preclude the others from
going as well. They don't posture like buddies in the House or through the
media so why be travelling buddies?
---
"aaaah and the whisper of thousands of tiny voices became a mighty deafening roar and they called it 'freedom'!"' Canadians Acting Humanely at home & everywhere
---
When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp
article is that it assumes so much. A similar situation happened when there
were ceremonies in Holland and Martin wasn't sure if he would go, then they
argued about whether the rest could go etc. In the end they showed up a day
late.
Common sense should tell these guys to plan ahead. I'm sure they didn't just
find out about the ceremony. They should have written to the PM and said we
would like to go along, this would cost taxpayers less if we travelled together,
are we invited? If we are not allowed to travel with you will we make our own
arrangements. Then they can issue a press release so the public knows who is
funding it and why. 'I believe this is an important event. Out of respect I will
be attending. I asked to fly along with the PM to save the taxpayer some
money on this but was refused by the PM"s office.' Or words to that affect.
It irritates me that when Canadian politicians are going to
represent us in another country they don' t seem to have the sense to do it in
a classy manner. It shouldn't be an issue. I can see why it is though, when
they fight like little children all year long we accept it; then we want them to
put on their best clothes and dress up like adults for the world to see them as
statesmen. It might be better if we expected statesmen at home conducting
our business and then these events wouldn't look so immature and
ridiculous.
---
"aaaah and the whisper of thousands of tiny voices became a mighty deafening roar and they called it 'freedom'!"' Canadians Acting Humanely at home & everywhere