List of Plagiarism Controversies - Politics - Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper

Further information: Canadian federal election, 2008#Speech plagiarism

• On September 30, 2008 in Canada, a top campaign official of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party, Owen Lippert, admitted that he plagiarized a speech written on March 20, 2003 for then opposition leader Harper regarding the Party's support for the Iraq War; the speech was copied almost verbatim from a similar speech made by then Australian Prime Minister John Howard two days earlier. This was after Liberal MP Bob Rae noticed the similarities between the two speeches several weeks before Harper called the election, but the Liberals had to wait for the video of Howard's speech to be sent. Additionally, the Liberals also accused Harper of the same plagiarism charges for failing to acknowledge that they had been copied. As a result, Lippert resigned.
• Three days later, the Liberals accused Harper for plagiarizing another speech, but this time from fellow Conservative and then Ontario Premier Mike Harris. Out of 4956 words, 44 of the words in Harper's speech, which was written on February 19, 2003 for the House of Commons, is identical to Harris's speech, which was written on December 4, 2002 for the Montreal Economic Institute. However, it is not known who wrote Harper's speech, unlike the speech that Harper had plagiarized from Howard.