Harper's 'pretty cool'

Stephen Harper’s wife Laureen and daughter Rachel accompanied the Conservative leader on what aides said was his eighth trip to northern Canada.

Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik, local Conservative candidate Leona Agluukkaq and several schoolchildren rounded up by a friend carried welcome signs as they greeted the Harpers on the tarmac.

Kiana Foster, who said she is "pretty much 10" years old, thought Harper was "pretty cool."

But she said that she and her friend, Malayah Maloney, did not make the handmade signs that the prime minister autographed.

"They gave us the signs, but they said we could keep them."

- Tonda MacCharles

Harper channels Obama

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper appeared to channel Barack Obama in defending his party’s approach to the north.

"We will be present with eyes in the sky, ships in the northern passage and with boots on the tundra," said Harper.

"There’s a whole history of people saying that Canada can’t be done: that the French could never establish settlements here; that we could never split off from the Americans during the American Revolution; we could never defend ourselves in the War of 1812, in a modern economy we can’t preserve the east-west bond.

"But Canadians have always been able to say, 'Yes, we can'."

Harper went on: "We can build a country. We are building country, and, you know, that’s what we are going to do."

"In terms of the Liberal party, you know, their campaign seems to be about what they can’t do. They couldn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions, couldn’t get that done. They can’t rebuild our military. Now he can’t keep the budget in surplus, and now he can’t even do his own carbon tax. So you know our campaign is about what we can do in this country."

- Tonda MacCharles

PSAC says ABC (anyone but Conservative)

He couldn't miss the song, even if he didn't see the protesters. And their anti-Harper message was clear.

"Bye-Bye Mon Cowboy."

The old Mitsou song blared over loudspeakers as Conservative leader Stephen Harper arrived for a lunchtime rally in the Montreal suburban riding Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

It was a small crowd inside - about 150 - and a much smaller crowd protesting outside.

Police officers almost matched them in number.

About 25 federal public servants, members of PSAC, came to protest Harper's failure to adopt anti-strikebreaker bills proposed by the Bloc Quebecois. They also want French made the official language in federal workplaces in Quebec, which Harper's government opposed.

In this riding, where Sen. Michael Fortier hopes to get elected to a Commons seat, and in five others where Conservatives are in tight races with the Bloc Quebecois, PSAC organizer Renaud Plante says members will work to defeat Harper.

Personally, he said, that means the BQ should get the votes.

"But we're running an "Anyone But Conservative" campaign, he said.

-Tonda McCharles

Much Ado About Much

About a dozen Surété du Quebec officers stood guard outside a Stephen Harper rally in Drummondville.

Inside, more RCMP security officers.

Far from Harper's earshot or sightlines, about 30 students and young people beat bongo drums, and held up a banner that read "Harper Go Home. This is in English so you can understand."

The demonstration featured some performance art. A girl in a t-shirt bloodied in the back among others lay on the ground in silent protest.

Eric Faucher handed out leaflets against Harper's government on "censorship, Afghanistan, Kyoto, fetal rights, arts cuts, homophobia, racism and sexism."

"We're against everything he stands for," said Faucher, 18.

Gary Fontaine, a pizza shop worker, said Harper "may have recognized us as a nation, but he's laughing at us."

It's unlikely Harper even saw them. On his tightly-scripted tour, the Conservative leader has held no spontaneous encounters with members of the public. All his photo opportunities, all his announcements and all his rallies are attended by people who are invited and screened by the party in advance.

-Tonda McCharles

Photo ops ain't what they used to be

THE PAUL CHIASSON/CANADIAN PRESS/

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper at a news conference at a housing project Sept. 16, in Kitchener, Ont.

Photo opportunities — or “photo ops” — used to actually mean something, namely an opportunity to photograph a politician actually doing something for real, or in the case of former Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, not doing something, like catching the football. (Yes, we know, he caught it several times before he dropped it.)

In modern campaigns, they've evolved into visual stunts.

Under the Conservatives, “photo ops” have a whole new meaning, or rather they don't. In some cases, they are purely visual stunts, staged but meaningless.

The entourage of reporters following Harper are not allowed near them — they might ask questions. Only cameras. Today’s was telling.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper — before he announced his proposal for a tax credit for first-time homebuyers — went to a different house than the one featured behind him when he announced his plan. A few blocks away in the same subdivision, the earlier "photo op" that would show up in newscasts featured Harper speaking to a young couple in an uncompleted home.

Turned out this was not even the home that Stephanie Roberts and Brad Shildroth were in the midst of buying. “Yours is a similar one?” Harper prompted. They said yes. Harper replied he remembered when he and his wife Laureen “were building our first place.”

“I think what we did was got a picture of me with a shovel...and the whole house done. Of course I didn’t do anything,” he said. He posed with a shovel in the snow, as if he was about to dig the basement.

“We kept the moment for posterity,” he said as media photographers captured the campaign moment, which was not a real moment at all.

Pit stop

After a morning news conference and a confrontation with protesters, the Conservative buses carrying media moved to a parking lot in Kitchener where reporters could wirelessly file reports from the buses.

One senior strategist quipped: "I hope you've noticed we're in Conservative nirvana:  at a mall right between Wal-Mart and Sears."

No rain on this parade

About 100 party workers and supporters cheered as Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper boarded his plane before heading to London, Ont. With the remains of Hurricane Ike threatening rain, the Conservative-branded Airbus was parked nose-first into Hangar 11, so that Harper and company would not get wet.

- Tonda MacCharles

Puzzling photo-op

The Conservative leader's tour went to an "undisclosed location" this morning for a "photo op" to illustrate Stephen Harper's new pledge to extend maternity and parental benefits to the self-employed. It is a bid to help women and entrepreneurs, Harper said.

It was suggested that the owner of a small business (EuroSpa), Angela Macheado, 50, was the kind of self-employed person who welcomed such a program.

It's not clear exactly when it would have helped her. Her two eldest daughters, aged 27 and 25, now help her run the business, which she opened in 2000. She previously owned a hair salon when she was 19 but sold it.

"With an expanding family she decided it would be better to sell the business and work for someone else," said a Conservative strategist.

The point was made she had to return to work shortly after her children were born. The strategist gave the example that after her fourth son's birth, Macheado was back on the job five days later.

But it appears, from the sketchy details provided to reporters who were not permitted to go to the "photo op," that the birth of her sons, now 19 and 15, would have predated her self-employment status.

Conservative spinners later said that her daughters hoped such a program would benefit them.

 

Deflating wands, disoriented reporter enliven speech

Prime Minister Stephen Harper found his stump speech interrupted by bangs and whistles today.

He was making good headway in the speech to an enthusiastic crowd when the loud whistle of exhaling air interrupted.

"Friends, the opposition is ....," he said before being cut off.

Harper stopped and there was a brief moment of alarm as everyone tried to figure out the source of the sound.

Turns out someone's thunder sticks - the inflatable wands used to make noise - had gone flat with a whistle.

"You had the RCMP excited for a minute there," Harper said. "We'll leave the hot air for the Liberal rally."

And then after a pause, Harper added one more thought.

"I started talking about the Liberals. I thought that noise might have been some other kind of wind," he said.

The crowd was just settling from that incident when a loud boom filled the room. Turns out that a reporter had inadvertently walked into a glass panel, thinking it was an open door.

-Bruce Campion-Smith

Maritime Tory takes the high road

In a week when the Conservatives took heat for sharp partisan attacks, party supporters in Prince Edward Island are taking a different tack.

At a Harper rally Friday in Summerside, one supporter waved a big campaign sign that read, "have a great weekend."

Must be the legendary Maritime hospitality.

-Bruce Campion-Smith