Comedian cuffed after professing her love for Harper
'You like handcuffs?' Harper asks This Hour has 22 Minutes cast member
Last Updated: Friday, September 12, 2008 | 9:45 PM ET
CBC News
Security officials weren't laughing when CBC comedian Geri Hall approached Conservative Leader Stephen Harper at a press conference in Halifax Friday and began declaring her love.
Conservative party leader Stephen Harper watches as actor Geri Hall from This Hour Has 22 Minutes is removed by security. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)"Mr. Harper. I'm so sorry. I'll be so brief. I just represent the single female voter," the cast member with This Hour Has 22 Minutes said.
Officials immediately grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the room while Hall yelled, "Girls love a guy with a sense of humour, and we could just have a little fun!
"Stephen Harper, I love you! I want to love you!" she yelled as security officials brought her down the hallway and handcuffed her.
Harper seemed unfamiliar with the show, well known for ambushing Canadian politicians.
"Was that This Hour?" he asked reporters. "See, I don't watch it."
Hall said she tried to explain to security officials that she only wanted to ask the prime minister a few questions for a segment on the TV show.
Geri Hall is subdued by a security officer during the press conference in Halifax. (Peter Parsons/Canadian Press/Halifax Chronicle Herald)"They were really going to take me to the station, because they maybe didn't know who I was or maybe did know who I was, depends on how you want to believe it," Hall laughed, describing the ordeal in a later interview with CBC.
But instead of a jail cell, Hall was surprised with a brief one-on-one chat with Harper.
"OK, that was a bumpy start to the second part of our relationship," Hall joked, "but it was kind of sexy, too. Girl doesn't get arrested by a blue-eyed man very often."
To which Harper replied, "You like handcuffs?"
"Should I like handcuffs?" Hall responded, eyebrows raised.
The incident marked one of several lighter moments during this first week of campaigning ahead of the Oct. 14 federal election.
At a campaign announcement in a Winnipeg produce terminal Tuesday, Harper was asked by a reporter what vegetable he thought he was.
After pausing for a few seconds, Harper responded that he wouldn't be a vegetable but a fruit, because he's "sweet and colourful."
