The federal Conservatives ran a big full-colour quarter-page ad in Saturday's Vancouver Sun featuring the B.C. caucus and forgot to put in the chair of the B.C. caucus, Cariboo-Prince George's Dick Harris.
This isn't Harris's fault, of course. Someone in the national Conservative office likely put together the ad with a list of the names of the B.C. Conservative MPs and either Harris's name wasn't on the list or the person building the ad simply forgot to put Harris in.
Nobody caught it and there it is, in full colour.
It has to be embarrassing for Harris, a loyal soldier to the Reform/Canadian Alliance/Conservative cause and a 20-year MP.
What does the poor guy have to do to catch a break?
He's run straightforward, by-the-book campaigns in his Tory stronghold. He hasn't embarrassed himself, either on the campaign trail or in office. He has not avoided speaking his mind or articulating his political stance. He has never dodged the phone calls of reporters and he rarely called editors to complain about coverage. His skin was much thicker to public criticism than his former colleague Jay Hill and his fearlessness shows.
Harris was one of the only Conservative MPs to come flat out in support of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in the last federal election.
During the library's all-candidates forum last spring, Harris got the toughest question - a zinger about Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen still left in Guantanamo Bay and the only person convicted of war crimes committed by a minor. Harris spoke calmly and knowledgeably about the case, sticking to the law-and-order, pro-patriotism Conservative platform as if he had written himself.
Harris has been criticized for being a part-time resident of his own riding, since he rents a home in Prince George and owns a home with his wife Anne in the Okanagan.
Yet Harris met those criticisms head-on, too, saying he works right across the province and still manages one of the busiest riding offices in the country.
Sure, he was a little harsh to the protesters recently who had the nerve to stand outside of his office and protest the passing of Bill-38, saying he could easily organize a counter rally but his supporters "are all busy working and earning a living and raising their families and trying to make their lives as good as they can."
Ouch.
We've been running the letters to the editor ever since, from folks who also earn and living and raise families but had the nerve to oppose the massive omnibus budget bill.
Harris was in town in his usual quiet way last week to hand out some Queen's Jubilee Medals and his 19th annual Prince George Special Olympics Charity Golf Classic. The event raised a record $62,000 for the cause.
Unfortunately, he was a no-show at the Canada Day festivities Sunday in Fort George Park, which is in his riding. Bob Zimmer, the Prince George-Peace River rookie conservative (Zimmer made it onto the Vancouver Sun ad), handled the federal greetings, reading from notes that were far too long and no doubt provided by the Prime Minister's Office (does anybody outside of Ontario give a hoot about the bicentennial of the War of 1812? Apparently, Zimmer does). Zimmer remains flat and stilted, unlike Shirley Bond and Pat Bell, whom he shared the stage with, and also unlike Harris's smooth confidence.
It would be nice to see Harris more at functions around the city, at least as much as Bond and Bell or even Zimmer, but after seven elections, Harris, soon to be 68, is no longer a member of the angry Opposition with something to prove.
Meanwhile, there is already hustling going on behind the scenes of who will replace him in this riding.
Guaranteed, Harris will make his feelings known fearlessly and publicly about who is his preferred successor. Behind the scenes, he'll work hard to make it happen.
-- Managing editor, Neil Godbout
