The leaders series

Canwest News Service

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's advisers say they have witnessed "the making of a politician" during the campaign. (Shaun Best/Reuters)

Dion grew as politician as campaign unfolded

By Juliet O'Neill
Canwest News Service

TORONTO - Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's advisers say they have witnessed "the making of a politician" during the campaign for the Oct. 14 election.

Awkward and flat on the podium in the opening days, saddled with a Green Shift carbon tax plan that was a tough sell, a far more confident Dion has entered the last days of the campaign with a breeze, if not a wind, in his sails.

It took several weeks, but Dion gained his sea legs in time, his advisers hoped, for Canadians to have a second look at a man who learned on the stump how to show his conviction and to laugh at himself, especially his speaking style.

"Stephen Harper may speak better English than me," he began to tell each crowd for a guaranteed roar of approval, "but I speak the truth better than him in both official languages."

As the economy emerged as the dominant issue of the campaign, Dion less frequently used the phrase "Green Shift." Even so, he was able to incorporate his sweeping proposal to shift taxes from income onto pollution into the general debate about the economy and environment. Long before the campaign, the term "Green Shift" had been cursed by the Conservatives as "a tax on everything."

No one dared talk of a Liberal victory as the polls began to look up for Dion, but there was enough relief to reverse the assumption that the Liberals were facing the drubbing that former Liberal party president Stephen LeDrew said was not only in the works, but necessary to rebuild the party.

LeDrew's comment from the sidelines during the third week of the campaign was a public low point. Privately, a senior Liberal in Dion's entourage had already told his wife "it's all over."

After a disheartening first week on the campaign trail, the Liberals moved up by several days their plan to feature Dion with members of his "dream team" of prominent MPs, most of them former rivals for the party leadership in December 2006, and all of them better able to pump up a crowd and attract TV coverage than Dion.

The team included Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Ken Dryden, Scott Brison, Dominic Leblanc and Martha Hall Findlay, most of whom have been conducting national or regional campaigns for the Liberals parallel to Dion.

A turning point for Dion was the end of the third week, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused him of "cheering" for a recession, when he was merely doing what any Liberal leader would do - claiming to be a better economic manager than the Conservatives as Canadians needed to brace for a spillover from economic turbulence south of the border.

Dion got angry. Fed up with what he called low blows and cheap shots from Harper, Dion fought back in off-the-cuff remarks at a farm in Belmont, Ont., and later again that evening at a rally.

His advisers said it was time to ditch the TelePrompTer for all but a couple of formal addresses for the rest of the campaign. It was the same advice an awkward Jean Chretien, who spoke garbled English, received in his early days as Liberal leader: Be yourself and let the chips fall where they may.

Edmonton is one of several cities where Layton is hoping to make gains for his party. (The Gazette)

Layton's goal of prime minister admirable, but elusive

By Mike De Souza
Canwest News Service

Ever since the last election, New Democratic Leader Jack Layton's goal was to convince Canadians he should be their next prime minister.

It has been the common theme throughout the 2008 campaign, repeated at virtually every stop on the leader's tour.

"Yes, I am Jack Layton and I'm running to be your prime minister," he told an enthusiastic crowd of about 200 supporters this week in Alberta. "I'm doing it for you and for everyday families here in Edmonton. Are you ready for a prime minister on your side?"

Edmonton is one of several cities where Layton is hoping to make gains for his party with a campaign that has focused on growth for the New Democrats at the expense of either the Conservatives or Liberals.

Fuelled by high approval ratings for his own leadership, Layton has attempted to drive home the message that he's the only one who can identify with the priorities of ordinary Canadians and deliver the goods by rolling back proposed corporate tax cuts and using the money for spending on items such as health care, child care and economic development.

"I think New Democrats would be very pleased with the way the campaign has unfolded and the enthusiasm that Jack has brought to the campaign," said *** Proctor, Layton's former chief of staff who was an NDP MP. "I think the fact that this is his third campaign as leader is helping a lot. I think he sort of knows what he's up to, and it shows in the type of campaign that he's run."

As have the other party leaders, Layton has faced his share of bumps on the campaign trail with three candidates being forced to resign in British Columbia, one of the main battleground provinces of the election.

Video images that featured Vancouver candidate Dana Larsen appearing to consume drugs started the controversy. It eventually led to his resignation, along with fellow candidate Kirk Tousaw, because of ties to the B.C. marijuana party.

Within days, another candidate, Julian West, was forced to resign because of a stunt at an environmental conference in 1996 in which he dropped his pants in front of a group of teenage girls.

But in each case, observers say Layton dealt with the issues swiftly to avoid getting distracted from his message.

"I guess the key thing in retrospect is that it didn't stay as a lingering issue," said Patrick Smith, a political-science professor at Simon Fraser University.

"He quickly responded to it. Whether it was a wholesome response or not, we could argue, but the issue did go away. There's nobody talking about it."

Although some observers say Layton was overshadowed in the French-language debate, supporters say he rebounded with a strong performance in the English debate, hammering away at both the Conservatives for not having a platform and the Liberals for not stopping Prime Minister Stephen Harper's agenda.

"You supported Mr. Harper 43 times," Layton said, pointing his finger at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion during the debate. "His policies, your responsibility... If you can't do your job as leader of the Opposition, I don't know what you're doing running for prime minister."

Party officials enter the final days of the campaign sticking to their message that the New Democrats have a shot at forming the next government. Proctor, Layton's former adviser, acknowledged it's a shift in strategy for a party that was previously known as Parliament's conscience.

"For decades, the NDP has debated about whether we're running for government or running to be a strong third party or the principled party in the House of Commons, and I think (Layton) has decided since the last election that, `By golly, we're going to run for government and let the chips fall where they may,' " Proctor said.

"I think that was a bold decision, and probably, in the long term, the right decision."

Without money to mount an airborne campaign, May kept her name in the news by riding the rails from Vancouver to Halifax. (Natasha Fillion/The Gazette)

Winning seats: Elizabeth may, but she would if she changed tactics

By Richard Foot
Canwest News Service

The morning after the big smackdown - after a wave of public outrage forced Prime Minister Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Jack Layton and a group of TV executives to capitulate and allow Elizabeth May into the leaders' debates - May stood on a street corner in her home riding of Central Nova, greeted like a conquering hero.

Passersby patted her on the back, and drivers honked their horns or cheered from their windows.

Many had no intention of voting for the Green party, but like others across the country, all were offended that powerful forces had tried to exclude May from the debate, and their grassroots anger gave the Greens an early campaign boost like no other.

In a matter of days, this David-and-Goliath affair had transformed an upstart affiliation on the fringes of the election into a legitimate, mainstream party - a status it is unlikely to yield even if the party fails to win a seat on Tuesday.

"The fact that they got into the leaders' debates is a major stepping-stone for the Green party," says Nik Nanos, an Ottawa pollster and political watcher. "It allowed them to morph from a movement into a party. Elizabeth May changed the rules about who belongs in the debates. And she became a winner just by being there on the platform with the other leaders."

Without money to mount an airborne campaign, May kept her name in the news by riding the rails from Vancouver to Halifax, a "whistle-stop tour" notable for its novelty, that emphasized her down-to earth style and took her to small, railway towns never visited before by a campaigning federal leader.

The environmental activist and lawyer also proved her effectiveness as a communicator, explaining in simple terms the purpose of a Green tax shift - a feat that eluded Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.

"We tax the pollution, and we take the taxes off families," she said in announcing her plans for a national carbon tax.

There have been missteps along the way. May continues to be dogged by the controversy over a 2007 television statement in which she appeared to say that Canadians are "stupid."

Stephen Harper set out to run a cautious campaign with few policy surprises, and that is exactly what he has done. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

Harper's cautious campaign runs headlong into economic turbulence

By Andrew Mayeda
Canwest News Service

VANCOUVER - Stephen Harper set out to run a cautious campaign with few policy surprises, and that is exactly what he has done - even in the face of a global financial crisis.

Heading into the campaign, the economy was emerging as the most important issue for Canadians, but few political observers expected it to crash through the windshield with such force.

Conservative strategists hoped to capitalize on Harper's strong leadership ratings to run a campaign in which the prime minister himself, rather than any bold policy ideas, took centre stage.

Political incumbents tend to fare poorly when the economy heads south, but the prospect of a slowdown actually favoured Harper, who consistently polled as the leader most trusted by Canadians to manage the economy.

On Sept. 7, when the Governor General granted the prime minister's request to dissolve Parliament, Harper laid out his pitch. The choice for Canadians, he argued, was between "certainty and risk," between the prudent approach of his party and the "risky experiments" of the Liberals and their Green Shift plan.

Harper continued to hammer away with this message in the opening week of the campaign, warning that the Liberals' proposed carbon tax would plunge the country into recession.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives rolled out a series of ads designed to cast the prime minister in a warmer light. Harper appeared in a sweater vest, chatting about the importance of family.

Despite a couple of gaffes by members of his party, Harper's strategy appeared to be working. A week into the campaign, several polls showed his party hovering around the 40 per cent threshold of support seen as necessary to form a majority government.

Then the Tories started to lose momentum, especially in Quebec. Outrage there was building to the government's plan, announced just before the election, to cut $45 million in arts and culture funding.

Harper did not help his cause in Quebec on Sept. 22, when he announced that under a Conservative government, teens as young as 14 could face life sentences for serious violent crimes. Quebec has tended to favour rehabilitation over tough sentences.

But the biggest turning point in the campaign could be the fallout from the U.S. mortgage crisis. As some of Wall Street's biggest financial institutions went under or had to be bailed out by the American government, regulators began to fear the entire financial system could collapse.

Congress eventually passed a $700-billion US bailout package, but stock markets worldwide have taken a massive hit. In the two weeks through Thursday, stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange's main index lost well over a quarter of their value.

Amid the wreckage, Harper has struggled to find the right words to reassure jittery voters. On Monday, after unveiling a modest $8.7-billion platform, the prime minister urged the public not to panic, even suggesting the market woes were creating "great buying opportunities."

Canadian voters do not appear to be buying the Conservative message, however. Over the last week, the Tories have seen their lead over the Liberals narrow considerably.

Harper entered the campaign hoping to convince Canadians he could shepherd the country through a mild economic stormy. As it turns out, he must now weather a hurricane.

The Bloc Quebecois strategy from the outset was to run straight at Harper. (Mathieu Belanger/Reuters)

Bloc's 'block Tory majority' strategy had unexpected allies

Canwest News Service

MONTREAL - Gilles Duceppe said a lot of things this election campaign, but they all come down to the same thing: vote Bloc to stop Stephen Harper.

The Bloc Quebecois strategy from the outset was to run straight at Harper and the Conservatives in a wildly slashing attack while ignoring the rest of the field.

At the Bloc's largest rally last Sunday he was clocked invoking Harper's name 61 times in a half-hour speech without once mentioning Stephane Dion or Jack Layton, never mind Elizabeth May.

Even George W. Bush gets more mention in a typical Duceppe speech than his fellow opposition leaders.

He calls the prime minister a liar, a cheat, an arrogant and insensitive right-wing ideologue out to crush pretty well everything Quebec holds dear. Sticking firmly to the strategy, Duceppe said going into the campaign's final stretch what he said on Day 1.

"Stephen Harper is trying to get a majority to impose without limit his ideology inspired by George Bush. The battle of Quebec will be determinant because only the Bloc can block the road for the Conservatives."

Polls showing Bloc support steadily rising over the campaign suggest Duceppe's message has been getting across. If the trend holds, and there aren't legions of closet Tories lying to pollsters, the Bloc is on track to achieve its minimum goal of winning a majority of the province's 75 seats and possibly its ultimate goal of depriving Harper and the Conservatives of the additional Quebec seats they need to forge a majority.

In his fifth election as party leader, Duceppe has worked this campaign like the old pro he's become at age 61. He is the face of the Bloc and its voice; very few of his supporting cast of candidates has a profile outside their home riding. But he's also been lucky this campaign and has had a lot of help, some from unlikely sources.

No greater fortune came his way than the Conservative arts funding cut. It roused Quebec's artistic community to an anti-Harper crusade, led by some leading chansonniers in a province where having the singers onside counts for more than elsewhere in the country.

Duceppe was also able to capitalize on Conservative funding cuts to non-profit groups and regional development projects, which got local notables to side with him for photo-ops.

He lucked into help from Premier Jean Charest, who for reasons of his own took advantage of this campaign to distance himself from the Conservatives in anticipation of a provincial election campaign in which he must position himself as a staunch defender of Quebec interests against predatory federal power.

Given the outside help, not least having been granted a widely unloved Stephen Harper to kick around, a winning Bloc score on election night won't be so much a victory for Duceppe as a defeat for the prime minister.

Nor would it be much of a triumph for Quebec's sputtering sovereignty movement. In his set speeches, Duceppe pays lip service to sovereignty, but having invited anti-Harper federalists to vote Bloc as the optimal way to stop the Conservatives, he can't credibly claim a Bloc vote is an endorsement of separation, although he might well try.

If his appeal to federalists works, as it famously did with Margaret Atwood, who said she'd vote Bloc if she lived in Quebec, it would more likely suggest he's not taken very seriously as a sovereigntist any more.