 One of many questions submitted for Stephen Harper's YouTube interview. |
Canada’s prime minister isn’t known for being accessible to journalists.
Nor is Stephen Harper often seen taking part in public forums, where he might have to listen to citizens and take questions from them.
Our PM is known, however, for proroguing Parliament when he needs to take a break from the House of Commons.
Amid this backdrop, Harper is set to do an “exclusive” interview this month—on YouTube.
According to a post by Patrick Pichette, Google’s senior vice president and chief financial officer, on YouTube’s Citizentube blog, Harper will first respond to his Conservative government’s own throne speech with a “major policy speech” to be streamed on Thursday (March 11), starting at 7:45 a.m. Pacific time.
Then, on Tuesday (March 16) at 4 p.m., Harper will take questions from citizens.
People can submit questions in text or video form, and vote on other people’s questions.
Here’s a few questions that have already been submitted:
“Why is the government not more open about the Afghan detainee issue? Every time a legitimate question is asked, the response is that we should “support our troops” and look the other way.”
BJaunty, Waterloo, Ontario“When over 45% of Canadians admit to smoking cannabis at least once in their lives, as well as 14% using it monthly, isn’t it time to stop putting people in jail for victimless crimes and start to take the drug trade away from the black market?”
Francais McKellan, Edmonton, Alberta“Do you know the muffin man?”
Steve, Toronto
The top-rated questions will get put to the prime minister on streaming video.
It’ll all go down at www.youtube.com/talkcanada.
YouTube has previously used this format with U.S. president Barack Obama.
You can follow Stephen Hui on Twitter at twitter.com/stephenhui.
Most Popular
- 1. B.C. government changes rules to allow liquor licensed venues to screen movies
Comments (29) - 2. J.C. Penney and Ellen DeGeneres stand up to One Million Moms Comments (3)
- 3. The Georgia Straight's 2012 sex survey: The lust and thrust report Comments (1)
- 4. Vancouver musicians get to the heart of sex, love, and rock ’n’ roll Comments (2)
- 5. Your horoscope for February 9 to 15, 2012
- 6. Sex plays key role in health
- 7. Rio Theatre owner says liquor licensing change is not a real fix Comments (9)
- 8. What’s the most unusual location where you’ve masturbated? Comments (4)
- 9. What’s the most unusual place where you’ve hooked up in the Lower Mainland?
- 10. Valentine's dinners for real-life relationships
Comments
All questions to be answered will only be from Conservative insiders ... Give Me A Break ...
What a bias staement. And you think you have credibility? There were more Liberal PM's that prorogued more times than this Prime Minister.
Try giving objective views, instead of propaganda. Maybe you will hold credibility....Stephen Hui.
The Canadian Government is rising the the military budget to 30 billion dollars, in the next few years. Do you think this is right, when there is so much other conflicts concerning healthcare, poverty, the environment and many other social conflicts?
I think that military is a waste, and the governments should be working hard on negotiating peace around the world.
Increasing military budgets in the interest of peace building has proven ineffective. The world military budget was 1464 billion dollars in 2008.
A) if you stand for democracy why would you not allow All bills from the HOC to be placed on the internet so that all Canadians voters can determine what should be done/passed, and not a groups of big business ,or lobbyists, this would also allow voting for Supreme Court justices.