Tide turning against the Tories

The most intense period of the election campaign is upon us, and all the parties and all the candidates are running as hard as we can.

The tempo peaked for me in the last few days. I represented the Green Party in a debate for the Jewish community on Sunday night, and faced off against the other candidates in York Centre on Monday night. Also, yesterday I and several other Toronto Green candidates went to the Sheraton Hotel downtown to make ourselves available to media to comment on the campaign platform that Harper was unveiling there. And last night I attended a Parc Downsview Park community consultation meeting.

The Sunday- and Monday-night debates were reflective of the mood of the country. At both, particularly the Monday-night debate, the audience, and I and the NDP and Liberal panelists, took the Tories to task for their fear-mongering regarding crime and punishment — as well as other faulty approaches such as claiming Harper is a strong, decisive leader when he flip-flops with the best of them. I pointed out that a few examples of Harper's making 180-degree reversals: taxing of income trusts, honouring the Atlantic Accord, the fixed election date law, and consultative appointment of judges to the Supreme Court — with a Tory pre-election appointment September 5 that did not involve the other parties whatsoever.

There are many other indications that the tide is, thankfully, turning against the Tories. For example, earlier this week the Sierra Club of Canada and Greenpeace sent out a news release saying that Canadians should vote the Conservatives out of office because of their abysmal, do-nothing approach on the environment.

Another indication is the platform Harper unveiled yesterday in Toronto. I and several other Green Party candidates were at the Sheraton Hotel when Harper gave a speech to the Canadian Club about the platform, and we made ourselves available to media to comment on it. Our comments on the platform and the media coverage of it show Harper's amendment to bill C-10 is a sign they know they've shot themselves in the electoral foot.

Moreover, they are offering inadequate, belated bones to the manufacturing and aerospace industries. Nice try, Harper, taking Ontarians' money and giving it back to them only as small, band-aid solutions. As Green Party Elizabeth May noted, “This pocket change is woefully inadequate given the scale of the economic crisis. Like the GST cuts, Harper is dribbling money away with no impact whatsoever on the economy or job creation."

And Harper actually said during the platform-unveiling speech that the slashing of stock prices presents a "buying opportunity." To whom, Mr. Harper? Not those of the vast majority of us, who are seeing our savings shrink dramatically; only to those of your ilk, who are happy to prey on the corpses of collapsing corporations amid the mountains of lost jobs.

Perhaps, since Harper made the platform announcement the day before the beginning of the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, he was actually trying to slip in a little last-minute economic and social penance. Surely, though, his entreaties will fall on deaf ears among the Canadian public and perhaps even the Higher Power. This is because he has already shown his intent to turn Canada into 'Libertarian Land' where the things we Canadians cherish most — including equality of all people including immigrants, the social safety net, arts and culture, and access to safe food, clean air and clean water — are vanquished by the forces of deregulation, small government and 'business knows best.'