Canadian PM's aide resigns over plagiarized speech

Toronto: A senior campaign staffer for the governing Conservative Party resigned after admitting he wrote a speech for Prime Minister Stephen Harper that plagiarized another leader's address urging support for the US-led war in Iraq.

The opposition Liberals released transcripts and video of speeches delivered by then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard on March 18, 2003, and one by Harper two days later in the Canadian Parliament when Harper was the opposition leader.

Liberal foreign affairs spokesman Bob Rae said nearly half of Harper's speech was a word-for-word recitation of Howard's comments.

"How does a political leader in Canada's Parliament, on such a crucial issue, end up giving the exact same speech as another country's leader?" Rae said during a speech in Toronto as the parties campaign for national elections next month.

Rae said it was further evidence "of how Canada's foreign policy is now in lockstep with the right-wing foreign policy of the Bush administration."

Conservative campaign worker Owen Lippert resigned later in the day after taking responsibility for the speech. He said he worked in Harper's office in 2003 and wrote the speech calling for Canadian troops to be sent to Iraq.

"Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader's speech," Lippert said in a statement.

He said neither Harper nor anyone else in Harper's office had any idea he copied from Howard's speech.

Rae said a number of lines from Howard's speech were also duplicated in a guest column in The Wall Street Journal under Harper's byline on March 29, 2003. He said duplicated lines also appeared under Harper's byline in columns in the Toronto Star, National Post and Ottawa Citizen.

Conservative spokesman Yaroslav Baran said Lippert's apology is comprehensive and that he takes responsibility for the speech and the columns.

Howard had no comment on the issue, a spokesman said.