The Liberals have been caught putting someone else’s words into Stephen Harper’s mouth in their health care attack ad.
The line attributed to Harper “It’s Past Time the Feds Scrapped the Canada Health Act” not only was not from Oct 2010 as the Liberals state in the ad, it was from National Citizens Coalition president David Somerville in 1997.
Liberal Party spokesman Michel Liboiron said he didn’t think it was misleading to say the quote came from 2010:
“We wanted to use the most up-to-date reference, which would seem to be the Globe story” (see here)
Also: Note that the headline CBC runs doesn’t use the word “attack” only that the ad is “anti-Harper”.
Also: Note this from the article “Contacted last Thursday, Liberal Party spokesman Michel Liboiron…” So the CBC’s Laura Payton knew about this lie since last Thursday and didn’t report on it until today when the Conservatives made it an issue?
Update: From the Globe’s Jane Taber:
“a senior Liberal official said the party strategy dating back six months ago was to launch these attack ads at this particular phase in the campaign – “whether we were 10 points up or 10 points down” (see here)
Update: After first refusing to pull the ad:
“It references past statements made by Stephen Harper. These statements are on the public record and have been sourced multiple times — they are not made up.”
the Liberals have now changed their minds and will alter it.
BC Blue: One BC Conservative's view on it all... 
April 18, 2011 at 8:14 AM
The LPC KNOWINGLY out right lied:
“The Liberals know full well that the quotation belongs to Mr. Somerville (NCC), not Mr. Harper, because the Liberal Party correctly attributed the comment to Mr. Somerville in the Liberals’ 2004 essay
April 18, 2011 at 8:19 AM
Liberals busted again on another lie
April 18, 2011 at 8:48 AM
Liberals busted again and Kady O’Malley with CBC blessing defends the Liberal Lies!
CBC must be sold.
April 18, 2011 at 8:48 AM
That is their ‘code’ and mantra for decades.
you know what baffles which shouldn’t is how the lpoc raised taxes during an economy boom. Screw up our EI, defunded our military and so on with a pricking excuse of theirs “the reason why we have to raise taxes is because Mulroney left us with a huge debt.”
Yet……AGAIN, DURING a Global recession facing the world and our country, PM STEPHEN HARPER AND FLAHERTY LOWERED TAXES.
Nothing, nothing will surprise ever that the liberals will follow through on the very same ‘excuse’ as they did before again.
April 18, 2011 at 8:34 AM
Does anyone expect the state broadcaster to hold the Liberals to the same standards?
April 18, 2011 at 8:34 AM
To quote Seinfeld, “A lie isn’t a lie, if you believe it.” In the case of the Liberals, I really think they’re so filled with hate that it’s ok to make stuff up, because it just HAS to be true. Let’s see if the media thinks THIS is important enough to report.
April 18, 2011 at 8:39 AM
Alberta sees SUNTV. I am pumped ready to hear the
UNTOLD STORIES left out purposely deliberately by the liberal coalition MSM.
I have had it with the msm showing off their BRAVADO for the BLOC SEPARATIST;
NDP-LAYTON-SOCIALIST
LPOC-IGNATIEFF- the most corrupt party in canadian history.
These so call hot to trot CHICKEN reporters do NOT have the stamina to take on the LPOC for us canadians from whom the liberals STOLE and refuse to give back our money and not only that, the whatever you might call them do not have the decency nor respect for the PM and conservatives who fought tooth and nail for our country’s stability while they PM and FLAHERTY took on the internantional countries for our sake during the recession.
Not once did I hear from the msm say “THANK YOU PM and FLAHERTY for guiding us through this recession.”
In fact, all good and positive news came from the STATES and abroad.
April 18, 2011 at 8:44 AM
CBC’s Laura Payton used to be a Sun reporter, defected to the CBC right after veteran Pat Storgan was all the rage.
April 18, 2011 at 8:46 AM
I was stunned when Sun originally hired her and wasn’t surprised at all when she went to the CBC
April 18, 2011 at 8:55 AM
Did you know that the F-35’s Canada wants to purchase for 140 Billion come without engines?
I know it’s true because Giggles and Ollie said so yesterday on Question Period.
The Conservatives say that the report is mistaken and the engines are indeed included and the purchase price is much less than the reported 140 Billion but we know what liars the Conservatives are.
We know what the real truth is because surely CTV’s Question Period would have reported the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Ollie joked about them being gliders.
Are we Canadians such saps??
I had to do some investigating.
As it happens, the F-35 engines ARE included.
Giggles and Ollie were wrong and I’m a little pissed that they were too lazy to do the little bit of research like I did to debunk the story.
On a national political news program where purchasing jets is a hot topic the viewer shouldn’t have to go to the internet to get the whole story.
April 18, 2011 at 9:07 AM
Your link has been updated –
“The Liberal Party won’t stop using an ad that wrongly attributes a quote to Stephen Harper, arguing he has made similar statements in the past.
A spokesman for leader Michael Ignatieff said Monday that Conservative Leader Harper has a lifetime of comments that show his opposition to universal public health care in Canada.
So now they are acknowledging that it is a lie, and their excuse is “but, but, buT…………….THE CONSERVATIVES!!!!!!”.
And if he had a lifetime of such comments, why would they attribute one to him that he never said, hmm?
BUSTED – BIG time!
April 18, 2011 at 9:37 AM
I think they will regret this decision big time since this is libel and I seriously doubt they will not be sued for this.
April 18, 2011 at 9:51 AM
BTW good work from the war room crew today. This could damage their campaign. Doubt they have another ad ready to go and they’ve already spent some cash on this plus if you add in a legal angle. It’s all gravy right here and totally awesome work.
April 18, 2011 at 9:52 AM
That’s an actionable offense under our Civil Libel Laws, but then again they are liberals ergo above such peasant laws aren’t they?
April 18, 2011 at 10:14 AM
Everything should come to a screaching halt – now. The PM should call them on this and demand a retraction and an apology.
The Cons need to make this a serious issue and broadcast it loud and clear.
I know they’ve run a smooth cautious campaign but the gloves need to come off on this as left unchallenged it could be very damaging. Sue? – yes, but that won’t help in the here and now.
April 18, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Wait a second, I think Surecure has a pretty good take on what we should be doing next –
http://surecures-remedy.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-liberal-attack-ads-you-had-option.html
April 18, 2011 at 10:14 AM
I just watched Mildewski call Ignatieff on this false quote. Of course, Ignatieff never answered and went around in cricles, and when Mildewski tried to pin him down specifically and asked him straight up if he was going to pull that ad, Ignatieff whined about all the things the Tories said about him for years and askd if they were they going to pull their ads.
See the difference is that those were video clips of Ignatieff in his own words saying the things he said. What we have here is the Liberal party out and out lying about what Harper said or didn’t say.
Maybe if the Liberal warroom was a little more careful with their reseach instead of hastily and desperatley throwing up an ad in the rush of the last couple of weeks of an election campaign they wouldn’t have had their pee-pee stepped on like this.
April 18, 2011 at 10:29 AM
LMAO the Globe retreats –
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/18/cv-election-lib-ad.html#
April 18, 2011 at 10:40 AM
The Liberals retreat as well –
Liberals say they’ll change health-care ad
The Liberals are changing course and are now saying they will change an attack ad on health care that wrongly attributes a quote to Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.
Great job guys! 😀
April 18, 2011 at 11:14 AM
According to Jane Taber the Liberals made this ad 6 months ago so they had plenty of time to research this plus on top of that it kind of quashes Iggy’s high road claims.
April 18, 2011 at 12:11 PM
If the media aired the video after learning there were lies contained it would make them as libel as the Liberal Party who owns the ads. Also for those that have seen the ad will they notice the missing sentence, if not there could be long term ramifications for the Liberal Party via libel suits.
April 18, 2011 at 9:49 PM
[…] Liberal Party won’t stop regulating an ad that poorly attributes a quote to Stephen Harper […]
April 19, 2011 at 7:17 AM
[…] Michael Ignatieff dug himself deeper into the Liberal lie yesterday by saying that they used “extremely reputable sources” (ie Macleans and the Globe and Mail) in defence of running the falsely Harper-attributed health care quote in an ad. […]