According to the latest Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll, mid-way through the election the Liberals (at 32%) and the Conservatives (at 31%) find themselves in a statistical dead heat. The pollster’s seat projection model suggests that a vote held today would result in a Conservative minority government, with between 114 and 118 seats, leaving the Liberals with between 104 and 108 seats, the Bloc Québécois with 61 to 65 seats, and the NDP with an increased presence in Parliament, with between 21 and 25 seats.
Meanwhile, the overnight CPAC-SES tracking poll shows that support for the Conservatives and Harper as PM has slipped: the Conservatives are at 34% (down from 37% in the previous day’s tracking poll), Liberals are up at 33%, while the NDP at 18%, the BQ at 11%, and Greens at 5% remain steady. Although earlier in the week Harper came close to Martin as best PM, the Martin lead has widened: Martin 31%, Harper 22%, Layton 11%.
SES’ nightly tracking indicates that when the campaign focuses on change, the Tory numbers move up and when the focus becomes the socially conservative views of some Tory candidates the Tory numbers go down.
Even so, in yesterday’s Globe and Mail, a confident ‘Bush-Lite’ Harper talked to reporters about the prospect of forming a majority government, suggesting that his Conservatives would deliver a Throne Speech in the fall followed by a budget emphasizing tax cuts and military spending.
In the weekend prior to the debate, SES finds that the election to be a horse race, and Harper perhaps a tad too optimistic (or is that arrogant?). With new campaign ad blitzes, and Tuesday night’s English-language televised debate, next week’s polling results ought to tell the tale.
Tory Wants Funding For The CBC Switched Off
For many, the most distressing aspect of the campaign occurs in consideration of what a Tory government would mean to the arts in Canada.
According to Guy Mason, president of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, Conservative cultural polices would gut film and television production in Canada.

“What we’re seeing could be a devastation of the industry in a free and open market in North America,” says Mason. “Who’s going to be creating Canadian content?”

In their pre-election report, the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) gave the Conservatives a C- (by far, the lowest ranking among the five major parties), for “no sign of support for the arts,” while in their Election Platform Matrix, the CCA finds the Conservatives …

Plan to audit all federal grant and contribution programmes and contracting policies ‘on an expedited basis’, would initiate an overall review of the relevance of the role played by the CRTC in Canada’s communication and broadcasting industries, and in respect of specific questions on funding to the CBC and the Canada Council, a spokesperson stated that there is “no mention in the platform (that) indicates status quo” for a first Conservative mandate.

In an article published in Thursday’s Edmonton Journal, freelance writer Todd Babiak writes that …

In its 46-page policy platform, the Conservative Party doesn’t mention art and culture. Not even in the appendix. The word art only appears once, in quotations, decrying the “artistic licence” defence for child pornographers. Stephen Harper and other Conservatives have said they would cut finding to the CBC in whole or in part, and Heritage critic Jim Abbott supports lifting foreign ownership restrictions on telecom companies and broadcasters.

Babiak concludes his article, by writing, “In all our current excitement about change, we should notice what the parties ignore. We may not know what we’re voting to abandon until it’s gone.”
In respect (or lack thereof) of the CBC, earlier in the week Tory hopeful Joe Spina, a two-term MPP under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, stated he wants funding for the CBC switched off, saying it serves as a mouthpiece for the federal Liberals. In addition, Spina told the Toronto Star’s Caroline Mallan …

“Where I have a problem with the CBC is where it competes for audiences in urban areas with other private radio and television … driving listeners away from the free market.”

Repeated polls have shown Canadians strongly approve of the mandate for the broadcaster, which receives approximately $1 billion in annual government funding to operate in both English and French.
Ex-Alliance Director Quits ‘Vacuous’ Tories
Barry Yeates, ex-director of political operations for the Canadian Alliance — the predecessor of the ‘new’ Conservative Party — is the latest prominent Tory to throw his support behind the Liberals.
In an open letter Friday to news editors, Yeates writes: “I find myself increasingly apprehensive of the vacuous platform and social conservative agenda now being purveyed by the newly formed Conservative party.”

“I think the views expressed by a number of Conservative candidates and party officials, on topics as diverse as abortion, sexual orientation, bilingualism and immigration verge on intolerant. I am therefore deeply concerned about what a Stephen Harper government could mean for Canada.”

The Conservative leader said such attacks are the work of a Liberal party desperate to pull its campaign out of a swan dive.
But in an indication of the heightened emotions in the election campaign, as a huge crowd milled outside an Ottawa hall last night, waiting to get into a Harper rally, 15 young protesters held signs reading Don’t Mortgage Our Future and Respect Our Charter, shouting “Books Not Bombs.”
NDP Leader Shoots Down Missile Defence Programme
Is Stephen Harper a pro-American hawk? Maude Barlow, in an article published in the Globe and Mail, says she thinks so, writing that …

Harper has said that Canada’s traditional support for multilateralism is a “weak-nation strategy” and has called for Canada to replace the “soft power” of persuasive diplomacy and peacekeeping with the “hard power capabilities” of intelligence and military power in the service of continental security.

As for a reinvigorated NDP leader Jack Layton, he told a boisterous crowd attending a rally at a downtown Toronto church last night to lash out against the proposed U.S-led missile defence programme, saying it “will spark a dangerous new arms race and Canada should have no part of it.”
Responding to enthusiastic supporters, he vowed to make missile defence an election issue, denouncing the programme as “a costly, ill-conceived hold-over from the Cold War that will ultimately put weapons in space.”
Tory leader Stephen Harper has said his government would put to Parliament a decision on whether to participate in the U.S. initiative on Ballistic Missile Defence.
The Conservative platform advocates a combat-ready military force.
Tories aim for ‘smaller’ Canada, Martin says
In a vigorous, impassioned speech before the Women’s Executive Network, in Toronto on Friday, Prime Minister Paul Martin painted a sombre portrait of life under the Conservatives (RealPlayer required).
Martin expressed concern that Stephen Harper could eliminate the Departments of Citizenship and Immigration, as well as the Justice Department, the Heritage Department, and “then turn around and eliminate Industry, Foreign Affairs, Fisheries and Oceans, and Natural Resources.”
“Under a Liberal government, fundamental rights will not be open to negotiation,” he said.
Martin also said Harper would slash spending on social programmes to pay for lower taxes.

“We would be smaller within our own borders with diminished social services — a wearing away of fundamental rights and an erosion of our collective responsibility to those who need our help most.”

Martin was cheered when he again said he would defend a woman’s right to have an abortion.
Although it is not a part of the Tory platform, Harper has said he would allow a free vote on the issue if an MP introduced a private member’s bill.
A Sneak Peak At The Harper Cabinet
The Toronto Star’s David Olive speculates on what a Tory cabinet would look like:

• Stockwell Day, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Day and Harper co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed essay condemning Canada for failing to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bush Administration in its Iraqi adventure.
• Belinda Stronach, Minister of Labour. Stronach is former CEO of union-hostile Magna International Inc.
• Jason Kenney, Solicitor General. Kenney equates failure to oppose abortion with condoning slavery and child abuse.
• Vic Toews, Minister of Justice. Toews wants to repeal or substantially amend a law protecting gays and lesbians from hate crimes.
• Cheryl Gallant, Secretary of State with responsibility for Women’s Issues. Gallant recently equated abortion with the videotaped beheading of U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg by Iraqi terrorists.
• Rob Merrifield, Minister of Health. Merrifield believes women opting for an abortion should first obtain counselling.
• Scott Reid, Minister of Multiculturalism. Reid wants to scale back government services for minority-language groups.
• Joe Spina, Minister of Culture and Heritage. Spina, former Ontario MPP under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, now a Tory hopeful in the GTA riding of Vaughan, wants to eliminate funding for the “Communist Broadcasting Corporation.”
• Frank Luellau, Minister of State for Human Rights. In a Globe and Mail interview, the Tory candidate in the Ontario riding of Kitchener-Conestoga unburdened himself of his belief that “the biblical teaching is that [homosexuality] is not a natural kind of relationship. I think it is inappropriate for Christians, especially Christian leaders, to live that lifestyle.”

The worst part is, the joke Olive makes above could, in fact, become reality.
“We’re The Conservatives: We Don’t Believe In A Free Press”
Supporters of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper repeatedly heckled Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters today, at a Harper press conference held in Brampton, Ontario.
Both CBC reporter Jennifer Ditchburn and Vancouver Sun reporter Peter O’Neil were jeered when asking a question on gay rights, as was Toronto Star reporter Tonda MacCharles when she asked Harper to again “clarify exactly your answer to the question about whether you recognize the ability of courts to read into the Charter, (to) … interpret the Charter to include sexual orientation under the equality rights guarantee?”
Audible groans could be heard from the crowd.
“This is very pleasant being heckled at a news conference,” MacCharles said before Harper answered.
For insight into Stephen Harper’s policies, as well as important 2004 federal election news events, click on VanRamblings’ full Decision Canada coverage.

Raymond Tomlin

Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology.

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