Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Accused of Plagiarism

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The Liberals say that almost half of Harper's speech was a verbatim copy of a speech that Australia's then Prime Minister, John Howard, delivered just two days before.

A link to the Liberal Party's website where they have a video of the two speeches running side-by-side is here.

Bob Rae unveiled the video in Toronto while giving a speech to a partisan Liberal crowd using two large television screens and showing the two speeches side-by-side.

There were several moments in the video where the voices of the two men overlap perfectly. As the Liberals report on their website:

One of the fundamental roles of the Prime Minister of Canada is to lead Canada’s foreign policy. Canadians need to know how it is that on the most important foreign policy decision of the generation, Mr. Harper could not even explain his position in his own words.

I think it is important to note at this point that on March 20, 2003, when Stephen Harper addressed the House of Commons, he was the Leader of the Opposition and not the Prime Minister of Canada.

Hours after the Liberal video was unveiled, a Conservative campaign worker, who worked for the Leader of the Opposition in 2003, resigned and issued the following statement:

Since the beginning of the election campaign, I have been employed by the Conservative Party of Canada at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.

In 2003, I worked in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. I was tasked with – and wrote – a speech for the then Leader of the Opposition. Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader’s speech. Neither my superiors in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition nor the Leader of the Opposition was aware that I had done so.

I apologize to all involved and have resigned my position from the Conservative campaign.

Owen Lippert worked for Harper as a foreign policy advisor in 2003 when Harper made the speech. Prior to his resigning today, Lippert had been working on the 2008 Conservative election campaign.