Ottawa Centre Liberal MP Mac Harb thinks human clones walk among us. Perhaps Harb has some special insights into these matters. On the other hand, isn’t this the same man who couldn’t find a committee room on Parliament Hill or any sign of the homeless living in his riding during the winter?
Politicians often make ill-advised comments when speaking off-the-cuff, but Harb seems to be in a league of his own. Consider his comment, while filling in as a morning radio talk-show host, that human cloning is “on the way, big time.”
If only he’d left it at that. But not being able to restrain flights of fancy that would make Calvin proud, he continued: “There is no doubt in my mind there is somebody on the planet Earth, walking, who is a clone.” Not just one, mind you, but two or three spawned by some “DNA manufacturing device.”
Huh? Oh, off course, blame it al l on sleep deprivation. Harb had to get up early that morning for the radio show, hence the bizarre performance.
But after passing the blame on a lack of zzz’s, Harb allowed in an interview that he believes “there are some corporations somewhere that either have completed cloning … or are in the process of doing it.”
One could be forgiven for believing that an MP in the public eye might be a little more prudent in his public pronouncements. Where’s the evidence for these claims? To speak with such certitude about such a controversial issue is a disservice to his constituents and makes Harb an object of ridicule. What could he have been thinking?
Harb has a history of making strange pronouncements. Last fall, Liberal members of the Commons’ public accounts committee, of which he is a member, could not find the room where the Auditor General was to testify about a report which accused the government of mismanaging job-creation funds.
According to Harb, committee chair and Alliance MP John Williams changed the room at the last minute in an opposition attempt to exclude the Liberals from the debate. In fact, the room change had been announced by e-mail to all committee members.
And how about his musings about the homeless in his riding? “I mean, I can’t see a lot of people in Ottawa Centre at –40 degrees or –50 degrees without having a place to go and sleep because they would not be able to survive outside.” Precisely, that is why some of them freeze to death!
Harb must have had his blinders on or was in the wrong room. Or maybe it was sleep deprivation. On the other hand, maybe it was his ill-informed clone that made these gaffes.
— Hafeez Janmohamed