Tories 'united' Canada, Harper tells group

Tories 'united' Canada, Harper tells group
Prime minister credits Quebec nation motion at summer caucus
Richard Foot, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, August 02, 2007
CHARLOTTETOWN - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada is more united -- and Quebecers more loyal to the country -- than at any time in the past 40 years, and his government deserves all the credit.
In a speech to a large, partisan audience in Prince Edward Island last night, where the federal Conservatives are holding their annual summer caucus, Mr. Harper said his government's handling of the economy, tax reform, the war in Afghanistan, and particularly his controversial decision last year to pass a motion in the House of Commons declaring the Qubcois a nation within a "united Canada" have brought Canadians together.
"Despite the occasional squabbling between governments, the fact of the matter is this: Our country has not been this united since our centennial 40 years ago this year," Mr. Harper said to loud applause from about 1,000 Conservatives at a barbecue on the Charlottetown waterfront.
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The Harper government put forward a motion last November recognizing the Qubcois as a nation within Canada because of what he called, in his speech, Bloc Qubcois "mischief-making."
The prime minister's speech came on the first night of a three-day visit to the East Coast, during which he is hoping to boost the flagging spirits of Atlantic Conservatives and improve the party's battered image in a region where it is in desperate need of help.
Mr. Harper meets with his parliamentary caucus today to plot strategy for the fall and winter. Tomorrow, he travels to Nova Scotia for a Tory barbecue in the riding of Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay --who continues to weather the storm of controversy generated in this region by his government's decision not to honour the Atlantic Accords on offshore oil and gas revenues.
Mr. Harper's last budget effectively gutted the accords, and his handling of the resulting fallout -- threatening to sue Atlantic premiers who challenged him -- only fed the fires of anti-Conservative sentiment in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, where offshore petroleum is considered a last chance at economic independence. Both provinces continue to fight a high-profile public relations campaign, portraying Mr. Harper as a promise-breaker who is threatening their residents' future.
A recent poll by Halifax-based Corporate Research Associates showed that Mr. Harper's satisfaction rating with Newfoundlanders fell from 47 to 17 per cent between February and May, and from 50 to 37 per cent in Nova Scotia over the same period.