Month: May 2004

The Harper Express pulled into Montreal yesterday to address a crowd of about 500 people in a downtown hotel.

Harper underlined one of the key points of conservatism which is the even and fair distribution of power to the provinces. Yet, the preservation of the French language across Canada, in all of its federal institutions will be maintained.

You have my word. A government led by Stephen Harper will always believe that French in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada is a national priority.” — Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

The voters of Québec are seeking to dethrone the Liberals after sponsorship scandal has unfairly cast a shadow over that province. The voters there rightly believe that it is rather a Liberal scandal instead of a Québec scandal. However, the electorate is looking towards their usual voice of protest, the Bloc Québecois. Many Quebeckers are torn over how best to boot the arrogant Liberal party from office. The Bloc still maintains sovereignty as a principal policy position, yet many voters, who believe in Canada, see that party as the only viable option for removing the Liberal party from power.

Indeed, voters in Quebec are voting against the Liberals rather than voting for the Bloc. Gilles Duceppe remarked that while the Bloc cannot form the government, elections aren’t about win or lose; elections are about voters voting for people to represent constituents. Sovereignty is a dead topic in Quebec and Quebeckers may come to realize that their issues are being addressed and their values defended by Stephen Harper. Therefore, voters in that province may just vote for their true voice of opposition to the Liberals in Canada: the Conservative Party of Canada.

The new Conservative website went live today.

It has a clean and professional look and has a tabbed feature which allows rapid access to the most important information on the website: headlines, issues, “blog”, and calendar.

Most of the website is blue and feature red accents, however, the solid Liberal-red button “refer a friend” seems to pop off the page.

I was glad to see that the party didn’t stick with the old amateurish version of the site and instead replaced it with this very professional version.

On a side note, it seems as though the NDP has headed in the opposite direction: their website looked great before. What happened? It looks like an Irish clown vomited HTML and the head of Jack Layton.

Stephen Harper kicked off his campaign today by visiting Brockville Ontario at the centre of a riding which went Liberal in 2000 by 58 votes (the pain of that defeat was compounded conservative vote splitting). Indeed, a good place to begin: here’s a riding in which the Conservatives should win.

I was in attendance helping out with the Kingston and the Islands candidate, Blair MacLean, who was introduced at the event along with four other Conservative candidates from the area. Included among these candidates was Gord Brown, the candidate for this very winnable riding of Leeds-Grenville.

Harper’s speech underlined the platform effectively, focusing on government accountability, the gun registry and healthcare.

Other notable: when the members of the media arrived in their bus, a few of them immediately crossed the street to photograph and interview the eight people, most likely sent by the Liberal incumbent, to protest the Conservative gathering. I remarked to one journalist that the real story that they wanted was over on our side of the street as the large crowd behind shook their heads angrily at the disproportionate attention given to the obvious Liberal plants.

Other notable II: I met Paul Wells when he was hanging out in the parking lot killing time before the campaign event got under way. We talked a bit about the campaign, the campaign bus, and what he would expect from Harper’s speech. He also told me that he saw my Liberal Monopoly spoof via Andrew Coyne and told me that Coyne should be back blogging soon enough (he’s working on a book right now).

Other notable III: During his speech, Harper remarked that the Liberal incumbant of Leeds-Grenville is an Elvis impersonator. Harper then went on to impersonate the impersonator (to Heartbreak Hotel) “since my voters left me…” I gasped as he raised one eyebrow and started singing that line as I thought I was witnessing the beginning and the end of the Conservative campaign all rolled into one. But the impression elicited loud cheers from the crowd (and some nervous applause from his support team), so I guess he pulled it off.