Man in blue suit thanks firefighters
WEST KELOWNA – For a second straight day, firefighting efforts at the Westside Road fire were the backdrop for political photo ops.
Today, several federal politicians stood around waiting, occasionally wiping dirt from their clothing while sweaty, ash-covered, exhausted-looking firefighters surrounded them for the tightly controlled photo opportunity. Helicopters carrying empty buckets buzzed overhead and a steady stream of wildfire fighting aircraft circled prior to the event.
Handlers for the federal and provincial leaders promised reporters a chance to ask questions but B.C. Premier and local MLA Christy Clark answered only two, while the Prime Minister declined to answer all but one question. He made various statements about firefighting efforts, including a possible discussion sometime in the future about sharing in firefighting efforts.
Provinces fund their own firefighting. It’s not a federal responsibility.
After more than an hour wait, the press conference was over after less than five minutes. The Prime Minister would not take questions about why he was there, how much time the photo opportunity took from firefighters or what resources were used in the photo effort.
A federal election is less than three months away.
http://infotel.ca/newsitem/man-in-blue-suit-thanks-firefighters/it21514
Harper's not getting so much positive coverage out of his photo op LOL... then the Lepine chimes in
Exhausted forest firefighters refuse to sing O Canada for Harper
KELOWNA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is getting slammed on social media for having a group of front-line firefighters pulled out of the smoky hills near this bustling B.C. city so they could pose with him for a patriotic, pre-election picture.
But things didn’t go quite as planned for Harper’s advance team of organizers.
The selected firefighters were so tired and annoyed that they just silently watched Harper as he waved his arms around like a conductor and tried to get them to sing along with him in a rousing chorus of O Canada.
None of the group sang or even hummed along.
And none of them accepted the “Canada’s Better With Harper” t-shirts that the PM’s bodyguards were handing out.
...snip...
Local news site infonews.com said the blatant politicking using exhausted firefighters was rude, dangerous, egotistical, and pig-headed. The site refused to use Harper’s name in their coverage, referring to him instead as “a man in a blue suit”.
http://thelapine.ca/exhausted-forest-firefighters-refuse-to-sing-o-canada-for-harper/
= new reply since forum marked as read
