Harper says Liberals falling 'into the gutter'

DARREN YOURK

Globe and Mail Update

June 10, 2004 at 1:22 PM EDT

Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper accused the Liberal Party of reaching a new low in the election campaign Thursday, saying he predicts that new attack ads targeting his party will have little effect on voters.

Speaking at a party rally in Brampton, Ont., Mr. Harper said the television ads are just the latest example of just how desperate Paul Martin and the Liberals have become.

"I believe that when you throw mud you lose ground," Mr. Harper said. "...I will let the Liberals descend into the gutter and they will be punished accordingly."

• The Liberal ads

Stephen Harper speaks to supporters during a campaign stop in Brampton, Ont. (Frank Gunn/CP)

The ads feature a female voice saying that Mr. Harper wanted to take Canadian troops into Iraq, wants to limit a woman's right to choose, wants to ally with the Bloc Québécois and wants to spend heavily on military hardware.

The ad ends with Mr. Harper's line that Canadians won't recognize his Canada. The Liberal tag line is: "And he's right."

"I think this is the kind of tactic you use when you're very, very desperate and it often backfires," Mr. Harper said. "I'm going to be interested to see when the Liberals feel the full brunt of reaction -- not just from us and the public, but also their own people -- how long Mr. Martin is actually willing to continue running these ads."

"Mr. Martin is misreading public opinion and miscalculating this election campaign," Mr. Harper said. "...I think to treat the electorate as if they're imbeciles is a strategy that will backfire and that is what the Liberal Party has done from the beginning of this campaign."

As reported in The Globe Thursday, the Liberal Party started running a series of attack ads to stop the bleeding to the Conservatives as a top adviser to Mr. Martin says the "in a spiral."

"We are in a spiral right now that we have to arrest," national campaign co-chairman David Herle told a number of Liberal MPs and candidates in a conference call Wednesday afternoon.

The Conservative Leader used the rally to unveil details of his immigration platform, promising to work with provinces on a plan that would recognize foreign credentials of Canadians educated and trained in foreign countries.

Mr. Harper said he would set an end-of-summer deadline to establish a federal-provincial roadmap on foreign credentials recognition.

"Far too many new Canadians are working at jobs that do not allow them to realize their full potential because of roadblocks related to credentials recognition," Mr. Harper said. "This hurts every community but particularly those that need more doctors, engineers and diagnostic technicians."

Mr. Harper criticized the Liberal Party for spending more than a decade promising to bring about faster recognition for foreign-trained professionals but never delivering.

"This is yet another example where Liberal rhetoric does not meet Liberal reality," Mr. Harper said. "While the Liberals were dithering and delaying on foreign credentials, they were working overtime on the sponsorship program. Imagine what they could have done had they applied the same time, energy and resources to helping new Canadians."

The latest Ipsos-Reid poll of 2,003 Canadians conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV shows the Liberals have maintained a slim, 32-31 lead over the Conservatives among decided voters nationally. The third-place NDP stands at 16 per cent.

In vote-rich Ontario the Liberals have jumped eight points to lead the Conservatives 40-35. The poll shows the NDP dropping six percentage points, to 17 per cent.

An Ipsos-Reid seat projection based on the poll forecasts that the Conservatives would win 114 to 118 seats, and the Liberals 104 to 108. The Bloc would hold the balance of power with 61 to 65. A party needs 155 seats to win a majority in the new, 308-seat Commons.

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