|
Written by THE CANADIAN PRESS
|
|
Friday, 10 October 2008 |
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is still the front-runner with less than a week to go to voting day on Oct. 14 - but his poll numbers have been slipping in the face of an unrelenting run of bad economic news. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tom Hanson
Related Items
No keywords found
OTTAWA - Stock market mayhem, a tumbling loonie and fears of looming recession are combining to produce an unexpectedly tight race as the federal election campaign thunders down the home stretch.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is still the front-runner with less than a week to go to voting day on Oct. 14 - but his poll numbers have been slipping in the face of an unrelenting run of bad economic news.
The Toronto stock exchange took another hit Monday, dropping over 500 points, while the Canadian dollar lost nearly a cent-and-a-half and some of the country's leading economists warned of further troubles to come.
Harper was to try to regain the initiative Tuesday with the long-delayed release of the official Conservative platform, entitled the The True North Strong and Free.
However, party insiders said he was not planning any dramatic new departures.
The prime minister has repeatedly insisted on a steady-as-you-go course, arguing that the cures proposed by his opponents would be worse than the disease.
"Let's be clear: the prime minister of Canada isn't going to go around the country predicting a recession when we're not in a recession now," he told a news conference in Ottawa on Monday.
"I remain fundamentally optimistic about the Canadian economy, but optimistic - as I've said from the beginning - within the framework that we're now living in, and that is a period of economic uncertainty.
"Look, we're not an island. We can't pretend, and we're not pretending, that we will escape effects of world developments."
Harper said the main problem is the tightening credit situation internationally.
"Our main advice is obviously to encourage co-ordinated action, to encourage actions that will stabilize the situation without creating a great deal of moral hazard for taxpayers."
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, the NDP's Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois have all retorted that Harper is refusing to admit there's even a problem, much less propose a solution.
Dion has promised a 30-day action plan to address pressing economic issues if he becomes prime minister, with stepped-up spending on infrastructure, consultations with regulatory agencies and private-sector economists and talks with the provincial premiers.
In contrast to the ideological extremes of either the Tories or the NDP, Dion touted the Liberals as a centrist alternative with an impressive track record of managing the economy and balancing the books.
"We need real change, not false hope or misguided economic plans, especially in these times of financial uncertainty," Dion said Monday during a campaign swing through Sidney, B.C.
Layton has pledged billions in new spending, to be offset by a rollback in corporate tax cuts promised by the Tories. Layton is in agreement with Harper, however, that the Green Shift carbon tax proposed by Dion is not the way to go.
Layton, with his New Democrats polling at 21 per cent support, began a shift in his campaign Monday with new television ads. One slams Harper's stand-pat economic message and another mocks Dion, declaring Layton as the only alternative to Harper.
Campaigning in Vancouver, Layton bashed Harper's "do-nothing attitude," while mocking the folksy, sweater-clad image the prime minister has been trying to project.
"I'll tell you what the problem with his do-nothing attitude is: pull one thread and the whole sweater unravels and it's the working people of Canada who get left out in the cold."
With Harper in Toronto for the release of the Tory platform, Dion was scheduled to begin his campaign day in Vancouver before heading for northern Ontario, while Layton was spending the day in British Columbia.
Duceppe was in the Trois-Rivieres region of Quebec, while Green Leader Elizabeth May campaigned in Nova Scotia.
 |
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 10 October 2008 )
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
