Harper to face business leaders during New York visit

Stephen Harper will venture away from the international political stage at the United Nations in New York Thursday and turn his head to the business of the economy.

The prime minister is scheduled to take a grilling from some of the city’s business leaders in a question and answer session with the Canadian American business council.

And Harper is already taking heat in the Big Apple from critics of his push to have an oil pipeline built to pump crude into the U.S. southern states.

An editorial in the New York Times this week accuses the Harper government of keeping a leash on federal scientists, so they won’t publicly criticize the Keystone XL project.

The newspaper’s editorial board says Harper is bent on guaranteeing public ignorance by restricting scientists who receive government funding from sharing information, especially climate change research.

Harper has been pushing the Obama administration to approve the Keystone pipeline, insisting that it will create jobs on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

But American critics of the proposal, including from within the White House, have significantly downplayed the economic benefits of the plan.