Many voices, one message

Another expertly-produced anti-Stephen Harper video has hit the Internet in Quebec and is rapidly garnering attention in a fashion similar to the wildly-popular video featuring singer Michel Rivard called "Culture in Danger," which has been viewed over 500,000 times on YouTube.

This time, dozens of people in the field of culture and film are again featured protesting cuts to arts and culture. But so too are those in education, agriculture, health, and other domains expressing worry over Harper's policies, creating the appearance of a front with one thing in common: an interest in defeating the Conservatives.

The videos can be viewed at the web site unissonsnosvoix.ca, which also links to another site (voterpourlenvironnement.org) that allows voters anywhere in Canada to figure out how to vote strategically to defeat Harper in their own ridings.

In the wake of this kind of pressure in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois in the last week has been surging in the polls, very much at the expense of the Tories.

- Andrew Chung

Burn After Wearing

A unique protest was to take  place near St. John's tonight.

Actress Mary Walsh, also known as Warrior Princess, gathered a group of Newfoundlanders at Middle Cove Beach for a Sweater Vest Burning Bonfire — a shot at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new clothing style.

People were being asked to bring along a sweater or vest for burning in protest. The arts community is livid with the Conservatives for cutting funding to arts programming.

Puttin' on the Ritz

Gerry Ritz lives.

The Conservative agriculture minister, who disappeared earlier this month after joking about listeriosis tainted meat victims, showed up today for a Canadian Federation of Agriculture debate.

Ritz was cornered by a Canadian Press reporter at Ottawa Airport Sept. 17 to explain his comments in a teleconference with public servants in which he referred to the victims as "death by a thousand cold cuts."

Although Ritz aplogized, the macabre humour continues to haunt him.

The wrong kind of slogan?

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a "strong leader."

Just ask NDP Leader Jack Layton. Nearly every day on the election campaign, Layton makes that proclamation.

But before conspiracy theorists pounce on this as evidence of the Tories and Dippers being cahoots, there's a catch.

Harper is "the wrong kind of strong." (Maybe that means he's strong like a stinky roquefort or perhaps like overproof Jamaican rum.)

Either way, Layton's daily assertion of Harper's fortitude provokes bafflement from the ink-stained geniuses hanging on his every utterance.

-Robert Benzie

Fainting spells

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper seems to be causing people to swoon on a regular basis.

In Victoria on Thursday morning, a young man who was part of a group of youths standing behind Harper at an announcement fainted on live television. The youths, who formed a backdrop for the Conservative leader, had been standing under hot lights in a hotel meeting room for nearly an hour.

Later, at a large rally in Edmonton, there was another fainting incident just as Harper was wrapping up his speech. But in the packed crowd, Harper seemed not to notice and kept on talking while spectators and Conservative organizers scrambled to help the latest fainting victim.

Like the youth, the man who dropped to the floor in Edmonton was soon up and feeling okay.

-Les Whittington

Questions linger about former Tory candidate

In Halifax, federal cash has gone missing and questions of are being asked of a handpicked Conservative candidate who stepped down after it was revealed she had a criminal record.

Just about three months ago the federal government gave All Women's Empowerment and Development Association (AWEDA) of Halifax almost $143,000. Nova Scotia cabinet minister Peter MacKay even delivered the cheque himself. Now the agency says it has to close its doors temporarily because it has almost run out of money.

Many people in the Atlantic province are watching this one very closely since the now suspended executive director Rosamand Luke was for a brief time the Conservative candidate for the riding of Halifax. In July 2006, Luke was convicted of uttering threats and sentenced to 18 months probation. She was also convicted of breaching an undertaking in June 2007.

The two remaining AWEDA board members say about $84,000 was paid to Luke without proper documentation. Among the other things, the board is curious about a cheque for about $2,200  Luke wrote to a company where her daughter works. Another $1,500 cheque was for expenses related to MacKay’s announcement in June of the $142,700 grant.

In what may be a classic understatement, MacKay told the Halifax Chrionicle-Herald, "it's a concern."

-Richard Brennan

Where's the exit?

A Canadian Press photographer was baffled when, waiting for a Stephen Harper campaign event to begin in Vancouver, he saw one of Harper's workers taping over an "EXIT" sign in the hotel where the event was to take place.

Everyone knows Harper and his team run an extremely controlled operation where nothing is left to chance.

But no one knew they were going so far as to cover over hotel "EXIT" signs to avoid the possibility of someone getting a photo of the incumbent prime minister with a metaphorical suggestion in the background that he's on the way out.

Tories keep Dona Cadman under wraps

Among the Conservatives lined up proudly behind Conservative leader Stephen Harper at a rally in Surrey, B.C., was Dona Cadman, who is running for the Tories in the riding of Surrey-North.

Reporters traveling with the Harper campaign were keen to talk with Cadman. She's the wife of the late independent MP Chuck Cadman, and is at the centre of the controversy over whether, before his death, the Conservatives might have offered him a life insurance policy in exchange for his crucial support in Parliament.

But Cadman and other Conservatives were hustled off the stage after the rally and pursuing reporters were blocked by the RCMP, who were there to provide security for the exiting Harper.

Asked by reporters why the Tories went to  such great lengths to keep Dona Cadman under wraps, a Harper spokesperson said, "Local candidates' priority is in the local ridings and not talking to the national media."

-Les Whittington

Now it's the 'Ottawa NDP'

Sounding a bit like U.S. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain bashing that bastion of evil -- "Washington," Stephen Harper is warning British Columbians about what he now calls "the Ottawa NDP."

He repeatedly referred to the New Democrats that way in a speech in B.C., where the Conservatives are in close fights with the Liberals and NDP in various ridings.

"The Ottawa NDP are simply out of touch with B.C.," Harper concluded in an address to the Conservative faithful in Surrey, B.C.

-Les Whittington

Where's Gerry?

Guess which key Conservative cabinet minister was nowhere to be seen when Stephen Harper made a campaign appearance in Saskatoon surrounded by Saskatchewan Tory candidates?

The smiling throng did not include Gerry Ritz, the Conservative agriculture minister who is running in the Saskatchewan riding of Battlefords-Lloydminster.

Harper was forced last week to make excuses for Ritz when it emerged that the minister had made light of the deaths in the tainted meat outbreak.

Asked why Ritz wasn't around to meet his leader, Harper said only that he presumed Ritz is out "on the campaign trail."