Eleven days after Diane Finley's comments there was a nationally televised election debate in which the Conservative party leader Prime Minister Stephen Harper was pressed by Gilles Duceppe into answering a question about his position on the Iraq War: Harper said he erred in calling for Canada's participation in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. At the time, he was Opposition leader. "It was absolutely an error, it's obviously clear," said Harper, adding that the claim of weapons of mass destruction proved false."