Campaign criss-cross

At the Fredericton airport, two visions - well, two planes anyway - crossed paths.

Just as Conservative leader Stephen Harper's plane arrived on the tarmac for a small airport rally, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's was taxiing down a runway to take off.

If the war of numbers is anything, both leaders got out crowds of about 100 here today.

Harper's earlier rally saw about 600 boisterous supporters turn out in P.E.I.

Trudeau enters the fray

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is getting some marquee name power during his campaign stops today. Justin Trudeau, son of former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, was to introduce Dion at an event in Vancouver and then stick with the tour for an evening rally in North Bay. Trudeau is running as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Papineau.

- Bruce Campion-Smith

Give us our votes back

Stéphane Dion has a message for Jack Layton: "We want our vote back."

In the last election, Layton made a play for Liberal supporters with the campaign slogan, "lend us your votes."

Today during a stop in Victoria, Dion took a shot at Layton and the NDP's decision to join with the opposition Conservatives in 2005 to topple the minority Liberal government.

That cost Canada a host of progressive policies, he told a rally.

"At the end we didn’t have childcare, we didn’t have the Kelowna Accord for aboriginal people, we didn’t have a lot of sound policies, but we had Stephen Harper," Dion said.

"Last time Jack Layton said ‘Lend me your vote’ and we had Stephen Harper. This time we want our vote back, with interest,” he said to cheers of supporters.

- Bruce Campion-Smith

 

Polar beer, anyone?

Stephane Dion recalled today how his troubles with English once had an audience chortling as he discussed what was supposed to be a serious topic – endangered species.

Dion told how he gave a speech as Minister of the Environment about the need to protect wildlife and species at risk, including polar bears.

“For whatever reason they were laughing when I was delivering my speech . . . it was not funny. I was speaking about species at risk,” Dion said Sunday during a visit to Churchill, MB.

Dion said he later asked his staff what the audience found so funny.

“They said to me ‘Minister, all the speech long you spoke about the polar beer. You were saying to them ‘we need to save the polar beer. It’s our identity’,” Dion recalled Saturday.

“Since then I made some progress in English I hope,” he said.

He has. As he told the Churchill crowd about his afternoon trip to see polar bears on the tundra near their northern Manitoba town, there was doubt he was talking about the animal, not a drink.

Bruce Campion-Smith

Sweater weather on the campaign trail

Sweater fever is catching. First it was Stephen Harper who donned a baby blue sweater in the campaign's early days in a bid to look more relaxed. Now Stephane Dion is adopting the look too. During a swing through New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Saturday, Dion traded his usual suit for casual pants, shirt - and burgundy sweater.

He wore the image well as he gave two rousing speeches and later mingled with supporters.

In fact, Dion seems a changed man since the debates. Dion, who ditched his TelePrompter a week ago, has been speaking with more enthusiasm and confidence -- and getting a welcome reception from supporters.

"This kind of speech, when I speak with my heart and my love for my country and my love for P.E.I., I don't need TelePrompters," Dion said today, during a stop in Miscouche, P.E.I.

Bruce Campion-Smith

Dion offers up a zinger for Harper

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion levelled a zinger at Stephen Harper today as he questioned why the Conservatives have yet to release their platform, with the campaign soon to hit its final week.

"The mail from Australia is very slow to come," Dion told supporters during a rally Saturday morning in Moncton, N.B.

That's a biting reference to the revelation this week that sections of speech that Harper gave in 2003 had been plagiarized from a speech then Australian Prime Minister John Howard delivered just a few days earlier. A senior Conservative policy advisor says he was responsible for the speech and has resigned.

Meanwhile, Harper is promising to reveal his party's election platform next week, perhaps on Tuesday.

Bruce Campion-Smith

Stephane Dion started his day with the shoppers.

The Liberal leader toured a market in Dieppe, N.B., a bustling building filled with the enticing smells of food. He wandered down aisles of vendors selling cheese, meats, hand-crafted jewelry, past Tammy's Famous Breakfast Sandwiches and Tresors de la Mer (Treasures of the Sea).

“Think he's going to buy our stuff?” said one jewelry vendor.

“I don't think so,” said the vendor next door at ‘Donald’s Workshop’ selling wooden toys and bowls.

“Maybe he’ll buy something if you vote for him,” came the reply.

Dion was joined on his morning outing by local Liberal candidates Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour), Brian Murphy (Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe) and Charles Hubbard (Miramichi).

At one, Dion greeted a family having breakfast and gave their small boy a large piece of fudge he had picked up from one of the vendors. A child on a sugar high. Might be the recipe for a parent to vote Conservative.

- Bruce Campion-Smith

Where am I?

Liberal Immigration critic Maurizio Bevilacqua could have used a good proof reader before he fired off a news release today criticizing the NDP for turning their backs on new Canadians.

The news release was datelined "Vaughn."

The party probably meant to write Vaughan, the large city on Toronto's northern border. Yes, the same city that Bevilacqua represents in Parliament.

Let's hope the hometown audience doesn’t spot the error.

- Bruce Campion-Smith

That's Some Ad Placement

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion was asked on CTV's Canada AM this morning what it's like to be belittled in a concerted personal campaign of anti-Dion Conservative advertising.

Dion said he is overcoming it during the election campaign because he's getting a chance to speak directly to the Canadian people. But, he observed: "Never has an individual been attacked by so many millions of dollars of attack ads than me."

Then CTV interrupted the interview for a couple of ads. You guessed it - one of them was the Conservative ad that tries to depict Dion as an ineffective ditherer and uses newspaper headlines to question his ability to manage Canada's economy.

- Les Whittington

The puffin returns

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion' started the campaign with a puffin controversy.
Now he's got one to hang on his wall.
On Saturday, reporters travelling with the Liberal leader presented Dion with a painting of a puffin in honour of his 53rd birthday on Sunday.
The Conservatives landed in hot water for a web posting in the campaign's first week that showed a puffin defecating on Dion. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to apologize for the "belittling" web site.
The print was painted by Paule St. Laurent, grand-daughter of of former prime minister and picked up earlier in the week at a Quebec City art store.
Dion thanked the media corps for the gift.
"We think it's very important that the press is respected. We'll make sure the RCMP stay in their seats," he said.
That's a jibe at the Conservatives who twice this campaign have asked Mounties to move back reporters covering the Prime Minister.