Atlantic-bound Martin hopes to put bad week behind him
ST. JOHN’S, Nfld. — After a somewhat subdued first week on the campaign trail, Prime Minister Paul Martin will spend the first part of this week stumping for crucial votes in Atlantic Canada, an area that sent 22 Liberals to the House of Commons in 2004 and a region critical to Grit hopes of retaining power in the Jan. 23 election.
Bad luck seemed to dog the Liberal leader last week as his campaign schedule took him first to Cornwall, Ont., where the city was reeling from the announced closure of a Domtar plant, and then to southern Ontario, j u s t a s reports emerged that Ford was going to shut down five auto plants in North America.
Still, Martin emerged from the first week of campaigning with the endorsement of Canadian Auto Workers head, Buzz Hargrove, one of the most powerful men in organized labour.
“This minority government deserves to come back to Ottawa with even bigger numbers,” Hargrove said. “There’s all kinds of opportunities, but the first thing we’ve got to do is get enough Liberals and enough New Democrats elected so that only two parties control the balance of power in the House.”
Martin, who flew to Newfoundland and Labrador on Sunday, offered little in the way of new policy, but his party retains a slight lead in opinion polls.
The prime minister concluded his first week was a “ very very strong high.” He defended his government’s record and knocked Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for fumbling his announcement on appointing a special prosecutor, noting deputy Tory leader Peter MacKay later contradicted the plan.
But a potentially embarrassing nomination awaits the prime minister here, should former provincial cabinet minister Art Reid win the Liberal nod in John Efford’s riding of Avalon. Reid, an outspoken former provincial minister of municipal affairs, is perhaps best known for making headlines in 1998 when he was forced to step down from premier Brian Tobin’s cabinet for making sexually derogatory remarks to a political opponent.
Re i d told To r y S h e i l a Osborne in the House of Assembly she should “go back to the kitchen probably where she came from.”
Newfoundland Conservative MP Loyola Hearn warns if Reid wins the nomination Tuesday night, those remarks will “haunt” him through the entire campaign.
“ People down here were extremely disgusted with what he said ... and people have long memories here,” Hearn told CanWest News Service on Sunday. “ Should he win the nomination, that will haunt him throughout the campaign.”
Steven MacKinnon, national director of the Liberal party, said Reid’s comments are “something we disapprove of vigorously.”
“He has apologized for them and he has paid the price. He was allowed to stand as a nomination contestant,” said MacKinnon.
The Liberals, who currently hold five of the Newfoundland and Labrador’s seven seats, are hoping to sweep the province.
According to a poll by Corporate Research Assoc., as reported in the St. John’s Telegram on the weekend, the Liberals are on track to take all seven seats in Newfoundland and Labrador and 25 of 32 in Atlantic Canada. Of those remaining, five are forecasted for the Tories and two for the NDP.
The numbers also showed that if the election were held now, 46 per cent of Atlantic Canadians would vote for the Liberals, compared to 27 per cent for the Conservatives, 18 per cent for the NDP, and 16 per cent undecided.
Hearn, who holds the seat in St. John’s South, dismissed the poll, saying the Tories will take at least three seats in the province, including his own.
CanWest News Service