Ottawa

‘The buck stops at the top’

Bob Rae continues to target the Prime Minister.

“You can’t get away with the fiction that a $10-billion mistake in calculating the cost of the F-35 stealth fighter … had nothing to do with the man in charge, with the man whose name and whose moniker is on every single publication of this government,” Rae told a special Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday. “He cannot now pretend that he was just the piano player in the brothel who didn’t have a clue as to what was really going on upstairs.”

While he expects a public servant or maybe even a cabinet minister or two might get “thrown under a bus,” Rae said: “A massive fraud of this kind can’t be ascribed to anyone other than the prime minister of Canada. This is Stephen Harper’s baby. … That’s why we say and I say without hesitation, Stephen Harper is not fit to be the prime minister of Canada.” Rae added: “I’ll tell you who I think should resign. Stephen Harper should resign. The buck stops at the top.”

The piano player at a brothel metaphor is one a young Bob Rae once used to taunt Allan MacEachen. (Mr. Rae and Mr. MacEachen are now close friends.)

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