09-14-2008
Rocky first week for Harper
By David Akin
Canwest News Service
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer watches over a group of protestors outside of a campaign rally for Conservative leader and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Habour Grace, Newfoundland. (Chris Wattie/Reuters) OTTAWA -Prime Minister Stephen Harper's campaign jet touched down in the nation's capital shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday night, ending a rocky first week for the Conservative but one which sees their party leading all others in every national poll.
Harper will spend Sunday in Ottawa and has no public events planned. He'll get back on the trail Monday morning at an as-yet-unannounced location somewhere in the national capital region.
In the first week on the campaign, Harper had to apologize for an overaggressive Web site, the campaign fired a key communications advisor and Harper's press secretary called in the RCMP to shoo reporters away from the prime minister.
In and around all that, Harper made just three relatively minor policy promises, including halving the diesel fuel excise tax to two cents a litre from four cents a litre, tinkering with foreign investment rules and announcing a tax break for small business owners.
A series of national polls published over the weekend, though, show that Harper and the Conservatives have a comfortable lead over the Liberals.
Ipsos Reid, which provides its polls exclusively to Canwest News Service and Global National, pegged Tory support at 38 per cent and the Liberals at 29 per cent. Ispos Reid's telephone survey of more than 1,000 Canadians last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
But Ipsos noted that Conservative support had not improved much and the party still lags behind other parties in Ontario and Quebec.
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