At the beginning of the final week of the federal election campaign, as James Travers wrote in Saturday’s Toronto Star, “voters are more or less equally divided between unsatisfactory options.”
In VanRamblings’ home riding of Vancouver-Quadra, NDP candidate David Askew has mounted a valiant campaign in an otherwise Conservative riding. In recent years, in order to keep the ne’er-do-well Alliance from taking the seat, NDPers (including myself, much to the chagrin of my children, and my friends) have voted strategically, electing Liberal Stephen Owen to office.
But, perhaps not this time.
Last evening, Don, calling from David Askew’s NDP headquarters said,

“Look, I know David isn’t going to take the seat, and his vote in the riding is probably strong enough that Stephen Owen will lose, leaving Vancouver Quadra as another win for the Conservatives. But no matter what happens, the Conservatives are not going to win a majority; they’ll only be an interim government, and by the time another election is called — and that next election will happen soon, very soon — Canadians will see what a threat the Conservatives are, and vote them out.”
“In the meantime, we need your support, because the NDP needs the research money the government will grant us based on the national vote for the NDP, to hold the Conservatives’ feet to the fire.”

Am I convinced? Will I vote for David Askew? Or, will I vote strategically, and cast my ballot for Stephen Owen, who I know and like, and believe to be a decent person? Quite honestly, I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. I suppose, like many Canadians, I’ll wait to make my decision til the moment I find myself sequestered in the voting booth.
Child Tax Credit Reveals Harper’s Mindset
Writing in the Toronto Star, rabbler Linda McQuaig (that’s rabbler, as in rabble.ca) explores the regressive nature of Stephen Harper’s child tax credit, a legislative initiative that will succeed in …

“… reintroducing a programme that provides bigger benefits to the richest Canadians and no benefits whatsoever to those at the bottom. This is where Harper plans to put all that new money — $3.5 billion a year, once fully phased in.
Under his proposed scheme, a Bay Street executive with two children and an annual salary of $225,000, would receive a total benefit of $1,746 a year.
But if that executive gets laid off from his Bay Street job and ends up flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s, he’d lose his benefit entirely. Indeed, he’d receive absolutely nothing from the extra billions Harper plans to hand over to families — even though the executive-turned-hamburger-flipper would still have two children to feed and clothe.”

McQuaig writes: “As an economist, Harper is aware of what he’s doing.”
Tories May Scrap Air Canada Bilingual Requirement

As reported in the Globe and Mail today, Conservative leader Stephen Harper would change federal legislation to allow Air Canada to move its head office from Montreal to Toronto, party officials confirmed last night.
Harper is prepared to scrap the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which would allow the national carrier to no longer be forced to provide more bilingual services than other competing airlines.

“We’re talking about a level playing field,” said Jim Armour, the Conservative Party of Canada’s communications director. “Right now there are requirements that only apply to one (airline). It doesn’t apply to WestJet, it doesn’t apply to JetsGo.”
“We have said that the act should be eliminated. That doesn’t mean that bilingualism requirements would be eliminated on airlines,” Armour said. “What we are saying is that bilingualism requirements should apply equally across the industry.”

Although the Conservatives have said they would not change the basic principles of the Official Languages Act, they have indicated that with a Conservative government there would be an open debate on the question.
Bloc Québécois MP Benoit Sauvageau said abolishing the Air Canada Public Participation Act would be “really catastrophic.”
“It’s a concrete demonstration that if the Conservatives are elected it’s the end of French at Air Canada in spite of all efforts,” he said.
Voter Apathy Expected To Reach New Highs

What is wrong with Canadians? In what may prove to be the closest race in Canadian electoral history, a record number of Canadians are expected to opt out come June 28th.
Turnout countrywide has dropped steadily to 61.2 per cent from 75.3 per cent in four federal elections since 1988, and election experts say nearly half of us will not cast ballots this time.
“Fifty per cent is the symbolic number,” says Larry LeDuc, a University of Toronto political science professor who co-wrote Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective. Anything below that “undermines the legitimacy of governments.”
The Globe and Mail suggests that voter apathy is “an inexplicable global malaise.”
One supposes that voter apathy has nothing to do with right-wing talk show hosts, the Murdoch media empire and its ilk, and corporate media the world over doing everything in their power to convince citizens that politicians are corrupt, in the process succeeding in their mission to alienate a majority of the populace from engagement in the political process.
Or, that government’s failure to to protect workers, communities, and the environment; deep cuts in social programmes, turning the tattered remnants over to the private sector; an utter failure to address youth unemployment, which remains at twice the rate for the rest of the population; and the ongoing failure to provide adequate child care, thus responding to the needs of young families; none of this could possibly have anything to do with a pervasive sense of alienation felt by most Canadians.
Oh no, that couldn’t possibly be.

With Conservative leader Stephen Harper maintaining his odious attack on Liberal Leader Paul Martin over what he says is a Liberal failure to address child pornography, in it’s final week the election campaign has become bogged down in an unsavoury war of words over what Prime Minister Martin has called, “comments (that) were clearly out of line.”
In Thunder Bay, NDP Leader Jack Layton lashed out at Harper.

“There’s been no sense of apology or anything … it shows a real failure of judgment in my view on Mr. Harper’s part, and puts into question the kind of judgment he’d exercise in office.”
“Stephen Harper doesn’t want Canadians to know what he really stands for, so they need to exploit tragedy (the murder of Holly Jones, the ten year old Toronto girl whose killer was sentenced on Friday) in order to divert focus, and it’s not going to work.”

The Montreal Gazette reported that Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Québécois, as telling reporters that the Conservative stance on child pornography was too extreme and would lead to legislative excess.

“It could have the effect of closing the Sistine Chapel in Rome. You know, those little naked angels, they’re just about everywhere in the churches. What do we do with that? That’s [the result of] their infantile reasoning. We don’t want to fall into excessive law and order like the Conservatives often have a tendency of doing,” said Mr. Duceppe.

The Bloc platform calls for minimum, long-term sentences for those convicted of sex crimes against a minor.
Jim Elve, at BlogsCanada, addresses the issue here and here.
Later today, VanRamblings will publish a full election day update.
For insight into Stephen Harper’s policies, as well as important 2004 federal election news events, click on VanRamblings’ full Decision Canada coverage.

“In just eight days, Canadians must make a decision that was never going to be easy and is now downright vexing,” writes James Travers in today’s Toronto Star. Travers’ opening comment in his Star essay comes on the heels of the release of today’s EKOS Resarch poll, which shows the Conservatives still with a narrow lead, with 31.4 per cent support of decided voters, while Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberals are at 29 per cent.
The NDP has picked up some strength, with 20.5 per cent, while the Bloc Québécois is at 14.2 per cent. The Green party has 4.3 per cent.
Although the latest EKOS and Ipsos-Reid polls still show the Tories marginally ahead, the polls don’t fully account for the latest wave of Grit attack ads, the Liberal bid to yoke Stephen Harper to Brian Mulroney and depict Harper and Ralph Klein as kissing cousins on undermining the Canada Health Act, or the bizarre Tory press release on Paul Martin as favouring child porn — and the refusal of Harper to apologize for it.
Yesterday’s SES-CPAC tracking poll, titled ‘Tories slide on first night of new ad’, shows the Grits with a decided-voter preference of 34 per cent, the Tories at 29 per cent, and the NDP at 22 per cent. This would seem to confirm the latest Liberal internal polling, showing the Liberals once again in front, heading towards election day.
The Knives Come Out For Belinda Stronach

Belinda Stronach

Star Tory candidate, and recent Conservative Party leadership hopeful, Belinda Stronach, is getting a rough ride from constituents in her home riding of Newmarket-Aurora, on the way to what is presumed to be an assured electoral victory come June 28th.
Opponents of the 38-year-old former Magna International CEO questioned Stronach’s credentials and blamed Magna for cutting jobs and wages. Another opponent referred to anti-abortion statements made by Conservative candidates that jar with Ms. Stronach’s own pro-choice position, and demanded an answer to the question: “How can we believe what you say when we’re getting so many different views?”
Harper’s Agenda Weakens Canada
In their lead editorial today, the Toronto Star asks, “What would Canada look like today if Stephen Harper’s Conservatives had their way?” Their answer: radically different.
Although the Star suggests “few will object to Harper’s promise to deliver better health care, lower taxes, a stronger economy, accountability, and restored integrity to government … voters may want to consider the rest of the Tories’ sweeping programme for change. Because come June 29, we may wake up to a very different country in the making.”

• Weakening Parliament: From appointing only elected senators — who would thwart the will of the House of Commons — to the implementation of ‘direct democracy’ referenda, which would almost inevitably lead to decision-making gridlock.
• Weakening the Supreme Court. Applying an American-style litmus test to the appointment process.
• Weakening civil rights. The Tories are prepared to overrule the Supreme Court and Canada’s cherished Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to the point of infringing on freedom of thought … overruling the Charter is a slippery slope that would legitimize attempts to strip away other rights.

The Star quotes Toronto Mayor David Miller as saying that the Conservative programme is a “recipe for Canada as a country to fail.” Although Miller was making specific reference to the Tories’ indifference to cities, his criticism applies to so much more, they say.
Michael Moore Turns Up Heat On Tories and Grits

Documentarian Michael Moore

In an article published in today’s Globe and Mail, American documentarian (and contrarian) Michael Moore puts in his two cents about the federal election campaign.
Visiting Canada for an advance screening of his new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore said he has spent a lot time trying to persuade Americans that Canadians are smart and his country should be more Canada-like. Electing Conservatives — whose leader, Stephen Harper, once advocated joining U.S. President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq — would spoil his argument, he said.

“You’re going to make me look really bad,” he said, to hoots of laughter. “I really need you to make sure that Mr. Harper does not take over the prime ministership. Why would you want to be like us?”
“[Ronald] Reagan and Mulroney start to look good when you think about Bush and Harper,” Mr. Moore said during a political t�te-�-t�te with Mr. Mulroney’s son Ben for CTV’s E-Talk Daily. “Because now, now, let’s jump ahead 20 years, all right, to the ‘Conservatives’ that we have now. These people; they’re off the grid …”

For insight into Stephen Harper’s policies, as well as important 2004 federal election news events, click on VanRamblings’ full Decision Canada coverage.