SAVAGE: TORIES MISUSED QUOTES

Liberal MP Says Memo Mangled His Comments on Taxes, Marijuana

OTTAWA - Liberal MP Mike Savage is complaining that the Conservative
party has distorted his comments in a recent radio interview to paint
a false picture of his views on taxes, spending and marijuana.

In an interview on Andrew Krystal's open-line show on News 95.7 on
Tuesday, Savage attacked the Conservative government for ending a
Liberal child-care initiative and cutting the GST by two points. He
also said he is in favour of decriminalizing but not legalizing marijuana.

Thursday, the Conservatives sent a talking points memo to Tory MPs
and supporters headlined Ignatieff's Reckless Plan for Canada.

In the memo, the Conservatives wrote that Savage had laid out Liberal
Leader Michael Ignatieff's three-point plan for Canada.

"First point: raise taxes. Second point: engage in reckless,
unaffordable new spending. Third point: be soft on crime by legalizing drugs."

The memo takes brief quotes from Savage's interview and uses them to
back the Conservative attacks on Ignatieff.

The memo, which was obtained by The Chronicle Herald, is inaccurate,
says Savage.

He said he doesn't advocate raising taxes and a transcript of the
interview proves he explicitly rejects the idea of legalizing marijuana.

Here's how the Tory memo quotes him on marijuana: "I am a big fan of
decriminalizing marijuana." Young people tell me we should make it
legal and "take the money and do something with it. I understand that."

Here's what he said when asked about legalizing marijuana: "Yeah, I'm
not a big fan of that. I am a big fan of decriminalizing marijuana. I
understand the argument. And I tell you . . . this has been raised at
schools like Auburn and Dartmouth High, the kids are saying, look,
why don't you make this legal, take the money and do something with
it? I understand that. I just don't know that we are at a place where
we need to be legalizing more things that are dangerous."

Savage objects to the quotations in the memo.

"It's kind of pathetic," he said. "That's just unbelievable. It's
almost as if nobody's going to check up on them. But that's what they do."

A spokesman for the Conservatives, communications director Fred
DeLorey, said his party's memo is accurate.

"There's no distortion here," he said. "Senior Liberal critic Michael
Savage said what he said - he is fine with raising consumption taxes,
engaging in reckless and unaffordable spending, and decriminalizing marijuana.

"Note that this isn't the first time Liberals have talked about
raising taxes - MP Gerard Kennedy has been openly musing about
raising the GST and a member of Ignatieff's own economic brain trust,
Ed Clark, just came out saying we should raise taxes. It's important
for Canadians to know that the Conservative government will not raise
taxes, unlike the Liberals, who would."

The Conservatives recently attacked Clark, the CEO of TD Bank, for
saying that the federal government would have to raise taxes to
reduce the deficit, something Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said
won't be necessary.

Ignatieff objected to the Conservative attack, saying the Tories are
too quick to attack anyone who doesn't agree with them.