Country does not need US-style government: PM

Toronto: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Friday that while the country does not need a panicky US-style government, he does need a strong mandate from the October 14 election so he can deal with a slowing Canadian economy.

"We don't need a Parliament that acts and functions like the American Congress," Harper said. He later added, "We're not going to get into a situation like we have in the United States where we're panicking and annunciating a different plan every day."

The US House of Representatives unexpectedly defeated a $700 billion bailout of the US financial industry last Monday amid partisan bickering, but passed it on a second try on Friday.

Harper criticised the way the US has managed the credit crisis, a day after his Canadian political rivals attacked him during a leadership debate for being out touch with the seriousness of Canada's economic slowdown.

Harper's opponents accused him of being lax about the country's economy, which they say is teetering from shock waves from the US credit crisis. Thursday's debate took place on a day the country's main stock exchange plunged almost seven per cent as investors dumped Canada's commodity stocks.

"The prime minister is ignoring it," Liberal leader Stephane Dion said of the financial crisis. "We will not ignore the difficulties of today. We'll act right away to help Canadians when they have a lot of concerns about their savings, their pensions, their mortgages and their jobs."

Caught

Plagiarism charge

For the second time this week, Canada's Liberal opposition party has caught the country's Conservative leader Stephen Harper in an embarrassing act of plagiarism in a speech.

Liberal candidate for the upcoming October 14 election, David McGuinty, said in a press release that Harper copied a speech by former Ontario Premier Mike Harris in 2002 about being a strong leader.

The recent allegations come days after a senior Conservative campaign staffer resigned after admitting he wrote a speech for Harper when he was the opposition leader in 2003 that plagiarised aspects of a speech by then-Australian prime minister John Howard urging support for the US-led war in Iraq.

- AP