{"id":12091,"date":"2014-05-26T17:37:03","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T09:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=12091"},"modified":"2014-05-27T17:41:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T09:41:41","slug":"tory-mp-praises-ukrainians-as-brave-for-turning-out-in-big-numbers-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/26\/tory-mp-praises-ukrainians-as-brave-for-turning-out-in-big-numbers-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Tory MP praises Ukrainians as brave for turning out in big numbers to vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12266\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12266\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Stephen-Harper.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12266\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Stephen-Harper.jpg\" alt=\"PM Stephen Harper at the National Day of Honour Ceremony on Parliament Hill. Photo courtesy of Harper's official Facebook page.\" width=\"960\" height=\"642\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Stephen-Harper.jpg 960w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Stephen-Harper-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12266\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PM Stephen Harper at the National Day of Honour Ceremony on Parliament Hill on May 10. Photo courtesy of Harper&#8217;s official Facebook page.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>OTTAWA &#8212; Prime Minister Stephen Harper is promising support to the people of Ukraine who voted in a presidential election on Sunday.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Congratulations to the people of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23Ukraine&amp;src=hash\">#Ukraine<\/a> for taking this important step towards rebuilding democracy. CDA will continue to stand by you.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Stephen Harper (@pmharper) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pmharper\/statuses\/470673501943496705\">May 25, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Congratulations to the people of #Ukraine for taking this important step towards rebuilding democracy,&#8221; Harper tweeted Sunday. &#8220;CDA will continue to stand by you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A Canadian MP says the voting went smoothly and largely peacefully.<\/p>\n<p>Conservative James Bezan, a member of Canada&#8217;s 350-member election observation team, describes Ukrainians as resilient and brave, adding they turned out in substantial numbers across the country to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n<p>He says the turnout was strong even in areas of eastern Ukraine where heavily armed pro-Russian rebels attempted to stop people from voting.<\/p>\n<p>Those agitators smashed ballot boxes, shut down polling stations and threatened would-be voters.<\/p>\n<p>Bezan says election observers knew there were going to be difficulties in those areas.<\/p>\n<p>So officials made arrangements to allow Ukrainians living in those regions to cast their ballots at more secure polling stations.<\/p>\n<p>He says the mood this weekend in Kharkiv, where he is serving as an election observer, was calm and peaceful, including during a pro-Russian rally which ended without incident. The city is located just 30 kilometres from the Russian border.<\/p>\n<p>An exit poll shows that billionaire candy-maker Petro Poroshenko is the hands-down winner of the election. The West is hoping the vote might resolve the crisis in the eastern European nation following Russia&#8217;s annexation of Crimea in March.<\/p>\n<p>Bezan is reiterating the Conservative government&#8217;s call for Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine. He adds Ukrainians are &#8220;extremely thankful&#8221; for Canada&#8217;s strong position against Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OTTAWA &#8212; Prime Minister Stephen Harper is promising support to the people of Ukraine who voted in a presidential election &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[552,4031,4119,273,407],"class_list":["post-12091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news-w","tag-elections","tag-petro-poroshenko","tag-praise","tag-stephen-harper","tag-ukraine","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}