Ontario dominating campaign
On the hustings, weeks 3 and 4: Spending promises, Duffy pile-ons
Ontario with its 121 parliamentary seats remains the centre stage of the federal election campaign, with the main party leaders spending much of Weeks 3 and 4 in the province making key spending promises and smacking down rival economic strategies.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair blitzed the hard-hit manufacturing centres of southern Ontario promoting promising tax credits for companies that invest in machinery and equipment for innovative research and development. In London, he promised a New Democrat government will deliver a balanced budget next year — no matter what. He didn’t elaborate.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau headed to Northern Ontario, where support has slipped in recent elections. At a later event in Toronto, he skirted a request to define what it means to be “middle class” — on whom much of the Liberals’ campaign is focused on financially helping. In Oakville, he announced an ambitious plan to stimulate the economy by spending $125 billion over 10 years to revitalize the country’s infrastructure. It would be financed by three years of “modest deficits,” he said.
And everywhere Conservative Leader Stephen Harper travelled in the province (and elsewhere), he was hit with aggressive media questions about the extent of the PMO’s complicity in the Mike Duffy expense scandal. One enraged Tory supporter in Etobicoke fired a blast of invective at a group of female campaign reporters that was heard around the nation.
In British Columbia, a traditional battleground between Conservative and NDP candidates, all three leaders attended events. Political observers say the Conservatives need the province on election night to put them over the top and back into office. But the latest polls suggest the province is leaning toward the NDP and away from the Tories.
Harper visited the new riding of Courtenay-Alberni, where longtime Conservative John Duncan, a former cabinet minister and government whip, is said to be in a tight race. Each of the leaders also attended multiple events around Quebec, where polls suggest NDP support continues to surge.