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TORONTO — One recent early morning, Conservative Leader John Tory hopped off his campaign bus for a blitz of door-knocking in Don Valley West, where he is in a close race to win his own seat and end a four-year drought for his party in Toronto.
The conditions for meeting voters were perfect: sunshine and a light breeze on a summer-like September day.
But political headwinds were buffeting Mr. Tory at the door over his party's pledge to fund all faith-based schools, extending a right now offered only to Roman Catholics.
Political observers still give Mr. Tory the edge in the riding, thanks to his high media visibility as party leader and a credible second-place finish in the 2003 run for Toronto mayor. But it is a tighter-than-expected contest against Liberal incumbent Kathleen Wynne, the high-profile Education Minister who seized the seat from the Conservatives in 2003.
Liberal candidate Kathleen Wynne, right, speaks to a resident as she canvases in her riding near Mount Pleasant and Lawrence Ave. in Toronto. (Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail)
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Unlike Mr. Tory, who must crisscross the province for his party in the campaign for the Oct. 10 election, Ms. Wynne is out every day in the riding, with key on-the-ground support from the politically active Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation that, for the first time ever, has endorsed a sitting education minister.
In his absence, Mr. Tory has turned to high-profile names, including former provincial Conservative cabinet minister Dennis Timbrell and former mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield, to talk to voters.
Sunday, in what may be their only head-to-head meeting of the campaign, Mr. Tory and Ms. Wynne will square off at an all-candidates debate that also includes Mike Kenny (New Democratic Party), Adrian Walker (Green Party) and Daniel Kidd (Family Coalition).
In Leaside, a key battleground in a riding of well-off residential homeowners and struggling immigrants in high-rises, the conversation quickly turns to the Tories' school pledge.
With his wife, Barbara Hackett, Mr. Tory spends several minutes with homeowner Pat Lane to win over the long-time Leaside resident and Conservative Party supporter. Mrs. Lane is not sold, despite Mr. Tory's promise to add $400-million for 53,000 students to join the public system.
“I can't see how he can justify giving money to other groups and not affect the money going into public schools,” she says later.
Funding for all faith-based schools would isolate, not integrate, newcomer children from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, she says. “If we start going to different schools, we will create, for lack of a better term, a ‘Harlem' with different communities.”
Mr. Tory, who spent most of his life in the riding (he and Ms. Wynne both currently live outside the boundary), says the school issue is one of many at the door, including the city's fiscal future.
“People will ask themselves two questions: Who do I want to lead the province ... and who can do an effective job delivering results?” says the former cable company executive and United Way campaign chairman.
Mr. Tory represented the rural Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey seat since a by-election in March of 2005 but left the safe Conservative seat to run in Toronto.
On a morning of door-knocking in Leaside, Ms. Wynne says voters raise the Tory school plan without prompting.
“The issue of public dollars going to private religious schools continues to be a very big issue,” she says. “It is the issue turning people's votes.”
Dorita Corby, a life-long Tory, is weighing a switch to the Liberals. “I don't believe they will stick to the Canadian school curriculum,” she says of the faith-based schools.
Like other Don Valley West voters, she laments her choice at the ballot box. “It is too bad they put two good people together. Kathleen should win and John Tory should win.”
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