Stephen Harper, speaking to reporters in St. John’s on Friday about events in Egypt:

“We want to see free and fair elections. We want to see the rule of law and stability. We want to see respect for human rights, including the rights of minorities, including the rights of religious minorities, and we want to see a government that will continue to respect peace treaties and seek peace in the Middle East. As I say, we are all seeing what’s happening. A transition is taking place in Egypt. In my judgement, there is no going back. I think the old expression is ‘they’re not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one.'”

NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar wasted little time in expressing his displeasure with the statement:

“I think it’s indicative of how this government treats foreign affairs,” Dewar told CTV’s Question Period. “Most importantly, on this file, we just had the parliamentary secretary talk about the importance of democracy. We had democracy happening on the streets and overthrowing repressive government, and this government talks about toothpaste…

Seriously.

Recently, someone in Canada made a freedom of information request about U of Ottawa profs Amir Attaran and Errol Mendez. The identity of the person making the FOI request is unknown, and will remain so under Ontario law, but that didn’t stop The Star’s Susan Delacourt and Bruce Campion-Smith from floating, in what was apparently promoted in all caps as a front-page “Star Exclusive”, Attaran and Mendez’s suggestion that the federal Conservatives are guilty of political intimidation:

“It seems like an intimidation tactic,” said Attaran, a frequent critic on the government, notably on the issue of the military’s handling of Afghan detainees.

“The information makes me think it’s somebody who is essentially trying to amass a file on critics of the government,” he said in an interview.

“I have a feeling it’s political.”

Professor Mendes:

“I started thinking, my God, this is a McCarthy-like attempt to politically intimidate both of us.”

The report, titled “Tories accused of digging up dirt on ‘Liberal’ profs”, contains not one shred of evidence that the Conservatives are behind the FOI request – it doesn’t even hint that there is any such evidence – yet the word “Conservative” is used in each of the first three sentences, and nine times in the article; “Harper” appears twice, along with “McCarthy-like,” and “the Prime Minister’s Office.”
There’s been no shortage of anti-conservative smears being published/aired in recent years, but it’s still remarkable that an entirely groundless accusation based entirely on the *feelings* of one of Ignatieff’s Harvard buddies is promoted as front-page “news.”
(h/t Alberta Aardvark)

The co-curator of the National Portrait Gallery, as heard on NPR’s Morning Edition, remembers the 1990s:

“It’s no longer the same game that it was 15, 20 years ago, where you simply
had to point out the homo and yell ‘Kill it!’ and the mob attacked.”