OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper has become embroiled in yet another embarrassing gaffe, prompting the removal of a key adviser.
Tory communications director Ryan Sparrow was suspended and forced to apologize Thursday for implying that criticism from the father of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan may have been politically motivated.
Sparrow made the suggestion in an email to a CTV journalist after Jim Davis, who lost a son in Afghanistan, called Harper's surprise pledge to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan in 2011 "irresponsible."
Sparrow's email to Jenna Fyfe, a producer with the television network, appeared to discount that criticism by noting that Davis was a supporter of Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff.
At an afternoon rally in St-Eustache, Que, Harper tried to douse the flames: "I have set a tone and expectation for this campaign and I'm going to make sure it is followed all the way to victory."
It was the fourth time in the still-early days of the campaign that Harper has had to deal with gaffes, or climb down from previous positions.
The prime minister issued a rare apology for an offensive ad showing a bird pooping on the Liberal leader. He reversed his opposition to including Green Leader Elizabeth May in the televised debates. And he had to deal with the resignation of a Conservative candidate in Halifax after it became known she had a criminal record.
The controversy overwhelmed a message Harper gave earlier in the day to a Montreal audience, that Stephane Dion's Green Shift Program not only threatens the well-being of the economy, but the well-being of the nation.
The carbon tax will be an "economic catastrophe" for Canada, he said, that will plunge the country into a "big recession" like the one in the early 1980s.
"By undermining the economy and by re-centralizing money and power in Ottawa, it can only undermine the progress we have been making on national unity."
At a news conference later, Harper repeated the charge, saying the ultimate purpose of the carbon tax is to "get more money and power in Ottawa," which, he said, would increase political resentment is some regions, and stoke nationalist sentiment in Quebec.
The alarmist language drew an immediate and enraged rebuke from Dion, who is best known as the architect of the Clarity Act designed to make it more difficult for a referendum on separation to succeed in Quebec.
"I do not need any lessons from Stephen Harper on fighting for the national unity of my country," he said, inserting a passage into a prepared text in Saint John, N.B.
"While he was busy talking about building firewalls in the West, I was fighting to keep my country together."
The "firewall" reference stems from a letter penned by Harper, when he was president of the National Citizens' Coalition, calling on Alberta to assume greater powers in order to shelter it from perceived punitive measures from Ottawa.
The national unity remark is reminiscent of the old, harshly partisan Harper before the recent attempt to recast his image, and it gave Dion a chance to remind voters of the high-mark of his political career as a champion of national unity.
NDP Leader Jack Layton was critical of both the Sparrow gaffe and the national unity comments, saying they show that Harper's image makeover has not changed the man underneath.
"I guess the sweater has come off," he said, referring to Tory ads showing Harper in a cardigan.
"Conservatives are known for being disrespectful to people who oppose them. I've seen it in the House of Commons -- the insults come fast and furious."
Layton added that it was unfortunate for Harper would try and "drive wedges" on the national unity front at a time when relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada are positive.
While Quebec is regarded as friendly as any province in Canada to initiatives on the environment, Harper clearly believes the Liberal's Green Shift is a millstone around Dion's neck, even in Quebec.
The plan -- which proposes to tax carbon usage while reducing income taxes -- has been a hard sell for Dion, partly because it is difficult to explain and partly because as Harper pointed out, Canadians may not buy the pledge that Canadians won't wind up paying more taxes in the end.
Earlier this week, Dion attempted to simplify the concept into six words -- "Cut income taxes, shift to pollution."
Dion soldiered ahead on selling his Green Shift in Saint John, N.B., Thursday, telling a breakfast pancake event that the rest of the world will punish Canada with carbon tariffs if the country does not act to bring down emissions.
"The world will not be nice for the free-riders of climate change," he said. "The world will not be nice for the kind of leader we have today."
Green Shift carbon-tax plan, however, is a tough sell in Atlantic Canada, a region where Irving Oil refineries, farming, fishing and forestry are all fuel-intensive economic drivers.
Layton also spent the morning attacking the Green Shift, saying his party's proposal for "cap-and-trade" system is superior because it punishes polluters and not consumers. The system would create incentives for big business to reduce emissions.
