Plagiarism scandal about to explode in Canada

I don’t know if this is, as the Conservatives suggest, a mark of the desperation of the Liberals who seem to be at risk of being passed by the NDP in this election. If it’s not, then I don’t see why they’ve been holding on to this for so long. In any case, this video might well become a classic example for schools, colleges, and universities across Canada of what constitutes plagiarism.

Ouch! Harper knows better than this, or at least I thought he did. I have to assume that someone wrote this speech for him and that he didn’t catch it. This reminds me of a case back in Calgary where one of my colleagues caught a student who submitted an essay that had been purchased off the internet. When confronted, the student, in tears, said: “But I didn’t plagiarize! I paid my roommate $20 to write the essay for me and he must have got it off the Internet!” That argument didn’t cut it for the student, and it shouldn’t for a politician in such a prominent position.