Ottawa

Laurier’s limited vision

Stephen Harper has been wrapping up his stump speeches with an allusion to Wilfrid Laurier’s famous prediction that the twentieth century would belong to Canada.

Harper goes on: “But even Laurier at his most optimistic could never have imagined what I saw as Prime Minister: Canada, among all the nations of the world, winning the most gold medals in a Winter Olympic Games ever.”

To be fair to Sir Wilfrid, he made his “it is Canada that shall fill the 20th century” remark in 1904, and died in 1919, five years before the first Winter Olympics were held until 1924, in Chamonix, France.

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