Liberal HBO host John Oliver delivered a sneering, hateful attack on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Sunday. After offering light-hearted jokes about his liberal opponent, the Last Week Tonight anchor assailed, “Don't be deceived by [Harper’s] bland exterior. Where there is banality, there is evil.”
After rattling off a list of crimes that amount to being a political conservative, Oliver raged, “But Harper's ugliest tendency is perhaps his pandering to Islamophobes. Earlier this year, his government passed a law called the zero tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, stiffening penalties for things like honor killing and polygamy, despite the fact both those things were already illegal in Canada.”
Oliver continued with a rant that included him mocking “fucking Stephen Harper.”
STEPHEN HARPER: And this is on top of the fact they once banned women from wearing the niqab while taking the oath of citizenship, a decision that justified that Harper justified during a French language debate like this.
HARPER: I would never tell my daughter that a woman should cover her face because she's a woman. I would never say that
OLIVER: Okay. For a start, if Stephen Harper's daughter is covering her face, it's probably because she does not want to be seen in public with Stephen fucking Harper. But, but this isn't a debate about your parenting, this is a debate about forbidding one particular religious practice.
Canada's election is on Monday.
A partial transcript is below:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
10/18/15JOHN OLIVER: Don't be deceived by his bland exterior. Where there is banality, there is evil. For instance, Harper's government has passed numerous laws weakening Canada's environmental protections. They’ve scaled back health care for some refugees which a federal court called cruel and unusual and Harper himself has taken an extremely strong position on marijuana.
STEPHEN HARPER: There's just overwhelming and growing scientific and medical evidence about the bad long-term effects of marijuana. We've spent a couple of generations trying to reduce the usage of tobacco in Canada, with a lot of success. Tobacco is a product that does a lot of damage. Marijuana is infinitely worse.
...
OLIVER: But Harper's ugliest tendency is perhaps his pandering to Islamophobes. Earlier this year, his government passed a law called the zero tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, stiffening penalties for things like honor killing and polygamy ,despite the fact both those things were already illegal in Canada. And then a few weeks ago, they suggested a barbaric cultural practices hotline, despite the fact 911 continues to exist in Canada. And this is on top of the fact they once banned women from wearing the niqab while taking the oath of citizenship, a decision that justified that Harper justified during a French language debate like this.
HARPER: I would never tell my daughter that a woman should cover her face because she's a woman. I would never say that
OLIVER: Okay. For a start, if Stephen Harper's daughter is covering her face, it's probably because she does not want to be seen in public with Stephen fucking Harper. But, but this isn't a debate about your parenting, this is a debate about forbidding one particular religious practice.
