Bob Rae    MP for Toronto Centre

Transcript of speech given earlier today in Halifax.

Our campaign centres on making Canada more prosperous, more socially just, more environmentally sustainable.

It is also about real accountability and real democracy.

And it is about Canada finding once again its own voice and place in the world.

We are in the last week of the campaign, and Canadians are coming to judgment about their political choice.

When we consider Canada's place in the world, which party is best equipped to lead?

Stephen Harper still hasn't told us how it was that the most important foreign policy speech he gave as leader of the opposition, his defining moment, came to be a speech plagiarized from a speech by John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, just two days before.

It says a lot about Stephen Harper and his sleepwalking campaign that he has said nothing and been asked nothing. An invisible staffer has bitten the dust, but Mr Harper has no explanation. An election campaign is apparently no time to discuss issues, or to be asked tough questions.

Canada has been in the international news in a big way twice this year, the first because of Maxime Bernier and Julie Couillard, the second because of Stephen Harper's copied speech.

Lester Pearson wins the Nobel Prize. Stephen Harper wins the Booby Prize.

The Harper government's approach to the world is a remarkable combination of relentless ideology and reckless incompetence.

The ideology is imported. The incompetence is homegrown.

We know for certain that if Stephen Harper had been Prime Minister five years ago we would have troops in Iraq. The Bush line on weapons of mass destruction, about the right to overthrow a government, about the short road to victory, about the wisdom and possibility of imposing something called democracy through the barrel of a gun, Stephen Harper has bought the whole doctrine, hook, line, and sinker. He trusted the "light and inspiration" coming from Bush's Washington.

Back in 2003 Stephen Harper said this:

"The time has come to recognize that the U.S. will continue to exercise unprecedented power in a world where international rules are still unreliable and where security and advancing of the free democratic order still depend significantly on the possession and use of military might." - Stephen Harper, May, 2003, speech to the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

The Bush/Harper doctrine is wrong. It is wrong because it equates military superiority with the ability to effect a political result. It is wrong because it says nothing about strengthening international institutions and the rule of law, about why Canada has, until the Harper government, consistently advocated working through multilateral institutions to build a strong network of countries throughout the world trying to prevent conflict, strengthen human rights, and create the basis for genuine security. It is wrong because it ignores the practical lessons of our own history.

So their heads are full of the wrong ideas. That's the relentless ideology part. The reckless incompetence part is the amateur hour on the Rideau that has now become the defining hallmark of the Harper government, the plagiarized speeches, the misplaced documents, the bizarre press conferences on tarmacs that have now become the hallmark of Harper diplomacy. Who knew that the successors to Wayne and Shuster and the Air Farce would come from a real live government ?

But we live in a dangerous world, where our commitments are not a matter of comedy but rather ones of life and death. Our men and women in Afghanistan deserve competence. They deserve a government that knows what it's doing and knows how to do it, whose political and diplomatic skills are equal to the extraordinary heroism of our military and development workers in Afghanistan.

We went to that country as part of a NATO and United Nations effort to create a more stable Afghanistan after a quarter century of civil war, Russian occupation, and Taliban rule, and in particular to allow for the creation of a democratic government after the Taliban allowed Al Qaida to use Afghanistan as a training ground for terrorism.

Al Qaida launched the attack on the World Trade Centre and the world had no choice but to respond.

Canada's work in Afghanistan has been difficult. Nearly a hundred Canadian men and women have lost their lives, and thousands of Afghan civilians and troops from other countries have been killed as well.

The road to peace and stability is proving to be a great challenge. There are two major errors to be avoided. The first is to think that there is a simple military solution to the conflict. That was the mistake that John Manley had to correct in his report. The rhetoric of "victory" and "mission accomplished" that lies at the heart of the Bush/Harper ideology is misplaced. We are not in Afghanistan to impose anything on anyone. The porous border with Pakistan, the tremendous compexity of tribal and clan rivalries crossing international borders, the geography of the region, all these are factors that have, over several hundred years, made foreign military intervention so difficult.

We went to Afghanistan to help that country's fledgling government restore order and security. We are there to answer a cry for peace and justice, to which we cannot be indifferent. But it is ultimately the Afghan people and their neighbours who must find their way to stability. We must never allow ourselves to be seen as an army of occupation.

The second mistake - the one that is made by Mr Layton - would be to abandon the Afghan people to the forces of extremism before their government and army are ready to assume greater responsibility for the future.

If Mr Harper is captured by an ideology, Mr Layton is as well, albeit a very different one. Mr Layton's view badly underestimates how Canada"s membership in NATO and the UN brings with it obligations.

Our aid work and our assistance in training the army and the police can't be done without having troops on the ground to do their job.

This summer I spent a few days on the frigate Ville de Quebec, now serving in dangerous waters off the coast of Somalia, helping the UN get food and supplies to people who are in danger of starvation. Canada's military has a critical role to play in the world. I was joined on that trip by Alexa McDonough, and we were both tremendously moved and impressed by what we saw, a Canadian professional military deeply committed to Canadian values and dedicated to serving in the cause of international security.
That is why the Liberals urged Parliament to come together on a new, changed mission for Canada in Afghanistan until 2011, a mission that would put diplomacy and humanitarian intervention at the heart of our effort, and focus our troops on supporting that intervention and training the Afghan army and police.

That is why we insisted on greater accountability to Parliament, why we insisted on clearer benchmarks for the mission, on greater determination in fighting corruption and the narco-economy that Afghanistan has tragically become.

Mr Harper said in Quebec recently that he accepted the fixed date for the end of our military effort in 2011. This is the same man who said he wanted a fixed date for an election in Canada in 2009.

The Stephen Harper who would have taken us into Iraq on the basis of someone else's exaggerated rhetoric is not the man capable of really changing the mission in Afghanistan. His head is too full of bad ideas. And he's surrounded himself with people whose heads are not full at all.
To coin a phrase - "Stephen Harper - not up to the job". Only the Liberals have the experience, the depth, the broad commitment and the understanding to do this job which Canadians want done.

The Liberal Party of Pearson, Trudeau, Turner, Chretien, Martin, and Stephane Dion is there for Canadians to get our voice back again. We are there for Canadians to build a country that can once again set a standard for the world. We are there for Canadians to make us proud.