Party favours: Election ephemera

[CHIMO]

Stephen Harper’s relations with journalists hit a new bump Saturday when a crowd of partisan supporters shouted down a reporter as he tried to get an answer from the Conservative leader. About 500 Conservative backers in Mississauga drowned out CBC reporter Terry Milewski’s efforts to press Harper on the links between a Conservative candidate in Vancouver and a man acquitted in the Air India bombing.

Milewski had asked Harper about the decision of Conservative candidate Wai Young to attend a meeting at the B.C. Khalsa School in which teachers and parents were urged to support her. Ripudaman Singh Malik, one of the Khalsa School founders, was found not guilty in 2005 in the 1985 Air India bombing in which 331 people were killed in two explosions.

As Milewski continued to ask his question, the crowd stood and started shouting: “Harper, Harper.”

Harper, who used his Saturday morning event to highlight Conservatives’ initiatives to promote religious freedoms, stood silent and made no attempt to silence the crowd — or answer the question.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/979333--party-favours-election-ephemera?bn=1

Tory crowd drowns out question about support from man acquitted in Air India

Conservative partisans deliberately drowned out a journalist’s question to Mr. Harper during a Greater Toronto Area campaign stop Saturday as he was being asked about a Vancouver candidate’s endorsement by a man acquitted in the Air India bombing.

The Tory Leader stood quietly while members of his staff and a crowd of about 500 at a Coptic Christian centre clapped and cheered loudly to prevent a CBC reporter from quizzing him further on his defence of Vancouver South candidate Wai Young.

Tory staffers encouraged the crowd. Among those doing so was Marc-Andre Plouffe, who before the campaign was a senior advisor in the Prime Minister's Office.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tory-crowd-drowns-out-question-about-support-from-man-acquitted-in-air-india/article1996458/