In the final 10 days of the federal election campaign, the two leading parties are going negative to get their message across. With most polls indicating that Paul Martin’s Liberals and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are locked in a statistical dead heat, neither party leader is passing up any opportunity to punch holes in his opponent’s credibility.

Mr. Clueless Stephen Harper

But, perhaps, the Tories reached a new low earlier today when they issued a party press release with a headline reading: Paul Martin Supports Child Pornography?. Although, later in the day — following a media backlash against the headline — the Tories withdrew the bizarre claim that Prime Minister Martin favours child pornography, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper didn’t back down from the substance of the party news release.

“I’m not going to, in any way, give the Liberal Party any break in its record on child pornography,” Harper told reporters at a campaign stop in Drummondville, Québéc. “It is disgraceful, they have had multiple opportunities to do something about it, and they have refused.” Asked about the ‘taste’ of the headline, Harper said: “What’s in bad taste is the Liberal Party’s record on child pornography.”
“I will not make excuses on it, I will attack them on it, and if (the Liberals) want to fight the rest of the election on it, good luck to them,” he heatedly said before stepping back on his campaign bus.

Tim Murphy, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said: “Obviously the statement … is a ridiculous one in a world where right and wrong is pretty clear. And it’s unfortunate when this kind of thing happens.”
On the Liberals’ own website, they point out that their party, working with MPs from all sides of the house, toughened the criminal code in 2002 to protect children from sexual exploitation, passed a bill mandating tougher penalties for those convicted of child pornography, and passed Bill C-16, creating a national sex offender database. Note is made that the Reform / Alliance / Conservatives voted almost en masse against Bill C-12, improving the protection of children from pornographic exploitation.
Quote of The Day
In describing Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper …

“A radical, neo-conservative, Americanophilic Conservative Leader, with hidden agendas peeking out of every pocket, himself in thrall to a powerful but alien Alberta populist Premier, and propped up in the House by a cabal of separatist Québéc MPs, will impose a decentralizing, Republican agenda on (Canada) unless they are stopped.” — John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail.

The quote above is placed in a particular context; read the full article here.
How Are The Papers Covering The Campaign?

four federal leaders of the apocalypse

As part of the Globe and Mail’s ongoing analysis of the 2004 Canadian Federal Election — in a project undertaken with the Observatory for Media and Public Policy at McGill University — the OMPP panel found that although most voters didn’t watch the leaders’ debate earlier in the week — and even though most voters learned about them through newspapers and newscasts — a majority of voters felt that NDP leader Jack Layton and Tory leader Harper were the debate winners.
The finding stands in contrast to the largely neutral coverage given Harper by the media, the negative coverage received by Layton, and the generally positive coverage given to Martin’s performance. Still, as an Ipsos-Reid poll found, “Voters were relatively less impressed with Mr. Martin, and more approving of Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton.” Strange, but true.
CPAC – Canada’s Political Channel

CPAC’s Ken Rockburn

For some days now, VanRamblings has been meaning to point you towards CPAC, Canada’s self-described political channel, which provides comprehensive coverage of national politics and current affairs, usually on television, but as well as a video streaming (Windows Media Player required) service.
During the course of the election campaign, veteran journalist and broadcaster Ken Rockburn not only has his own CPAC blog, but finds himself travelling across Canada interviewing Canadians about the upcoming vote on June 28th.
Most days, you’ll see Ken on the campaign trail, talking to Canadians from across our vast country, about the federal election, what issues are of paramount importance to them, and what these Canadians would wish to see for our country. This is grassroots public broadcasting, and often fascinating to watch.
More and More Political Blogs
Each and everyday, Jim Elve — the very able, hard-working and articulate administrator of BlogsCanada (and I thought I had a high energy level; compared to Jim, I’m asleep) — posts more and more political weblogs, at BlogsCanada’s Canadian Political Index site.
One site Jim Elve pointed to awhile back on the E-Group Election Blog on BlogsCanada, was Canada Votes 2004, aimed primarily (it would seem) at younger voters.
Jim also points VanRamblings’ readers towards Daily Kos, one of the US’ most popular blogs (150,000 visitors/day), which has a couple of ongoing discussions on the Canadian election: one here and another here.
Election Headlines of the Day

• Paul Martin launched an offensive today over Alberta Premier Ralph Klein’s plan to privatize delivery of medicare services, in the Globe and Mail story Health battle escalates as leaders trade barbs.
• Canadian Press reports New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton wrestling with a post-election scenario in a story headlined NDP would work with any party.
• In a story headlined Canadian prisoners exercise right to vote, the CBC presented a story on inmates registered to vote in the June 28 election, following rules laid out by Elections Canada, exercising a new right granted to them (and opposed by Conservative leader Stephen Harper) by a 2002 Supreme Court of Canada ruling. A RealPlayer streaming video of the story is available here.

A poll taken on the first full day following the leaders’ debates earlier in the week, indicates that support for Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is in freefall, the Tories having dropped a full eight points in the standings, since late last week, from 37% support among decided voters to only 29%, as of this morning. So much for Harper’s contention that the Conservatives will form a majority government come June 28th.
Read the figures and weep, Stevie. Ya shoulda listened to your handlers’ advice to knock off the arrogant talk of transition and majority government.

CPAC-SES overnight poll results, June 18th

As always, at some point later this evening, VanRamblings will publish a full wrap-up of the important election events of the day.
For insight into Stephen Harper’s policies, as well as important 2004 federal election news events, click on VanRamblings’ full Decision Canada coverage.

While Conservative leader Stephen Harper continues to predict a majority Tory government come June 28th, and as pundits speculate
as to who in the Tory caucus might be appointed to cabinet posts in a Conservative government, the polls still show that this election is a dead heat, and that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are poised to form a majority government in 11 short days.
VanRamblings agrees with CTV’s Tom Clark when he reported on CTV News tonight that “for a leader who campaigns against Liberal arrogance this sort of talk (Harper’s assertion that he will form a majority government) may be risky. The last time that Stephen Harper talked openly about a majority government, he got his knuckles rapped by his own advisors. ‘Too arrogant’, they said. Well, it still may be, especially if the next set of polls don’t reflect a Tory majority, because failing to meet expectations could take a lot of steam out of (the Conservative party’s perceived) momentum.”
Counting votes before they’ve been cast must be seen as the first major misstep by Harper in an otherwise pristine campaign for government. How will Canadians react to Harper’s arrogant assumption of a majority Conservative government. VanRamblings is willing to wager: not well.
Harper’s Numbers Don’t Add Up
You’d think it would make eminent sense to Canadians when Prime Minister Martin stated in the debates the other night that a Tory government couldn’t possibly cut taxes and spend $90 billion on health care and re-arming the military, and not somehow have to make fundamental cuts to social programmes, or take Canada into the kind of reeling debt and deficit of the last era of Tory government. So far, though, it’s not a message that’s resonated with Canadians.
Is the desire of Canadians for change so great that we’re willing to give the Tories a blank chequebook, and damn the consequences to the economy?

“To say we can deliver more tax cuts and still meet our obligations (such as pensions and health care), other programmes inevitably will have to be cut back substantially,” Warren Jestin, chief economist with Scotiabank, said in an interview with the Toronto Star today … “I get very concerned . . . we’ve seen it before when there are big tax and spending promises — inevitably, something has to give.”

A similar message came in new Liberal TV ads (not available on the web as of this writing) that warn voters that Harper’s plans will produce the kinds of deficits recorded under former Ontario Mike Harris and former Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (for good measure, he should have thrown in the name of British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell, as well).
A second study conducted by the C.D. Howe Institute, a non-partisan think-tank, also critiqued the Conservative tax proposal, saying that Canadians should debate the choices they must make between health spending and tax cuts.

“For Canada to maintain the same system with lower taxes, Ottawa would have to reduce spending in other areas, and the choices would not be easy,” said the report co-authored by Jack Mintz, a noted tax expert. “It would certainly be hard to cut taxes and spend more on health care if … efficiencies in public services cannot be achieved.”

Conservatives insist that Harper’s $58-billion election platform can be achieved without cuts to programmes by trimming fat. Yet Harper’s plan has raised many eyebrows among private-sector economists. Last week some warned that Harper can achieve his goals only by reducing spending — which some analysts favour — or risk deficits.
Why Social Issues Create Tensions In Tory Ranks
Frances Bula, writing in today’s Vancouver Sun interviewed a number of British Columbia political analysts about why the Conservatives are so vulnerable on social issues, an area where the Conservative party is potentially most out of sync with the majority of Canadians. The Conservatives’ social agenda has also been the source of most of the tension within the party between the members of the old Alliance and the old Progressive Conservative party.
David Laycock, of Simon Fraser University, and Reg Whitaker, a University of Victoria professor, told Bula that this gap and this tension have led to certain tactical and strategic moves on the part of Stephen Harper. In particular, his attempt to quell dissent within the party ranks and keep social issues off the agenda: “They understand you can’t elect a right-wing party in Canada with a socially conservative agenda at the forefront.”
Yet, that’s what we’re gonna get come June 28th — a socially regressive government out of step with the wishes of most Canadians. And why is it, that a substantial number of Canadians are planning to vote for the Tories?

Although VanRamblings will post, at some point later this evening, our usual wrap-up of important election events of the day — following, of course, a long, enjoyable, sun-dappled walk along the pristine, west coast beaches of Jericho, Locarno, and Spanish Banks — we’ll leave you with the following to consider on this beautiful late spring day …
The Greens are right, right?

Green leader Jim Harris

From the outset, VanRamblings has experienced serious misgivings about Green Party leader Jim Harris, his ties to the former Progressive Conservative party, the pro-market policies the Greens have developed under his leadership, and the Green commitment to ‘smaller government’ — which would bring about the kind of massive downsizing in the public sector that has been experienced in recent years in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia.
A reactionary rather than a progressive party, the Greens under Jim Harris have little or nothing to do with the progressive European Green movement — a movement which rose organically out of the work of radical political groups across Europe — and much more to do with the worst excesses of the Reform / Alliance / ‘new’ Conservative movement in Canada.
In an article published in the Globe and Mail yesterday, Murray Dobbin, a rabbler (that’s the progressive web site rabble.ca) and author of Paul Martin: CEO for Canada? paints the Greens as Tories in disguise — pro free markets, smaller government, lower taxes, the lot.
The Green’s fiscal policy, he writes, could have been drafted by Bay Street. Rather than eliminate poverty they opt for the Band-Aid of more food banks. They want to raise property taxes — one of the most regressive taxes. And apply budget surpluses to debt reduction rather than social programmes.

“The party is to the right of all the major parties, which are now committing billions for spending on social programmes,” Dobbin writes. Citing the Greens’ preferred reliance on community groups rather than government to clean up the environment, Dobbin concludes: “These are not the actions of a government committed to using its mandated power to actually protect the environment.”

By the way, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace this week each give the NDP slightly higher marks than the Greens on environmental protection.