Stephen Harper’s Atlantic Record

As Stephen Harper attempts to convince voters in Halifax and St. Johns today that his Conservative Party has not completely forgotten the needs of Atlantic families, the Conservative record speaks for itself:

This February, Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant, spoke to the Commons Defense committee about rescuing people in the Atlantic: "In Ontario we have inland seas, the Great Lakes, and it would never occur to any of us, even up in the Ottawa River, to count on the Coast Guard to come and help us" (Ottawa Citizen, February 10, 2011).
Gerard Keddy, MP for South Shore-St. Margaret, suggested that farmers in Nova Scotia need migrant labourers because of “all those no-good bastards sitting on the sidewalk in Halifax that can't get work” (CBC News, November 25, 2009).
“I think in Atlantic Canada, because of what happened in the decades following Confederation, there is a culture of defeat…" (Stephen Harper, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, May 29, 2002).