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THUNDER BAY, Ont. — Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory shrugged off suggestions Saturday that his controversial proposal to extend government funding to private, faith-based schools is dragging down his party with voters.
Most recent polls have the incumbent Liberals at just over 40 per cent support, with the Conservatives in the low 30s — a sign the Liberals are gaining momentum heading into the last 10 days of the campaign. But Mr. Tory seemed unfazed.
"I think if you look at most of the polls, it still shows a very competitive situation, including ones reported as recently as yesterday," said Mr. Tory, who'll go up against Liberal Education Minister Kathleen Wynne in a Sunday candidates' debate.
"I would only say this: I haven't seen too many hockey games declared at the end of the second period. We're two-thirds of the way through this campaign, there's a third left to go, and I'm going to continue to talk about a wide range of issues."
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Pundits are suggesting that Mr. Tory's plan to extend $400-million in public funding to faith-based schools, which has encountered resistance from voters and even within his own party, may be sinking his chances at forming the next government.
When asked about dissent within party ranks over the issue in an interview with Global Television later in the day, Mr. Tory didn't appear concerned.
"I'm the coach," he said. "(As) coach, at the end of the second period if you're trailing by a goal, you've got to go in and rally the troops and so forth. And that's my job."
But Mr. Tory, who's running against Ms. Wynne in her Toronto riding, expressed confidence that he'll win over voters before the Oct. 10 vote.
"The religious schools policy is one that obviously was thought about very carefully before the election," he said earlier after unveiling his party's strategy for northern Ontario at a closed timber mill in Thunder Bay, Ont.
"And I think that the principle that lies behind it is a principle that I continue to support and will continue to support because I believe that it's the right thing to do."
Mr. Tory's mentor Bill Davis — who extended public funding to Catholic schools in Ontario in one of his last acts as Ontario premier — would conduct consultations on the proposal for a year before a Conservative government would begin to implement pilot projects, Mr. Tory said. That gives the party "plenty of time" to make sure they're doing it right, he added.
Before the official campaign even began, the Conservative Leader got himself into hot water by suggesting that such public religious schools could teach creationism as well as the theory of evolution. Since then, Mr. Tory has distanced himself from the proposal saying it's just a small part of the Conservative platform.
But he waded back into the murky logistics of the plan Saturday when asked whether such public religious schools would be allowed to teach Islamic Sharia law or segregate girls from boys in the classroom.
"We're teaching the Ontario curriculum, and so those kinds of things won't be taught as part of the Ontario curriculum because they're not in it. Period," Mr. Tory said.
"Do we think there's any chance if we don't like those kinds of seating arrangements, that we're going to get them changed if those schools stay outside of the public education system or if we bring them in?
"If people are concerned about that sort of thing and they think it's better that people should sit all together — which would be my choice — then I'd say there's a much better chance of that happening with schools as part of the public education system where we can have some influence over what goes on than not."
Ms. Wynne accused Mr. Tory of running away from the debate on religious schools when he failed to show up for a scheduled televised candidates' debate on Thursday. Mr. Tory brushed off her comments as silly, citing his "broader responsibilities" as party leader as the reason behind his absence.
Mr. Tory didn't mention religious schools during a Saturday campaign stop in Thunder Bay, where he slammed Premier Dalton McGuinty for breaking his promise to protect jobs in the north and pitched his own strategy for tackling the problem.
A Conservative government would move 10 per cent of government office space in Toronto to northern Ontario and hard-hit rural communities, as well as use gas taxes to pour $300-million annually into the region's bridges and roads by 2012, with half that amount in his first budget, Tory pledged.
It would also roll back taxes the Liberals imposed on the province's fledgling diamond mines, reduce regulation in the mining and forestry industries, inject $100-million in northern research and development and build high-speed Internet in the region.
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