The CPC sent in Diane Ablonczy to help out in Oakville on Thursday September 18 as she has her own riding in Calgary locked up. The CPC national campaign team would not waste time sending their strong MP’s into hopeless ridings or ones they will almost certainly win. Terence Young has been door knocking since being nominated to run again for the CPC after his narrow loss in 2006. The mix of national trends and local hard work by Mr. Young and his team should finally move the current incarnation of Oakville into the CPC column. The Liberals seem to be flogging Bonnie Brown as some kind of opposition crusader seemingly conceding that their national campaign is a bust. Ms. Brown should have showed in the House once in a while if that was the way she wanted to brand herself.

Halton is a more difficult situation for the CPC. Garth Turner will get the Liberal core vote plus some CPC supporters annoyed with the way the CPC candidate, Lisa Raitt, was appointed and parachuted into the riding. She is certainly well qualified and should get the core CPC vote. This riding voted for a provincial PC turned federal Liberal (Gary Carr) in 2004. Whether it will vote for a CPC turned Liberal in the person of Garth Turner remains to be seen.

Assuming another election is a few years away, the Oakville and Halton electoral boundaries are likely to be reconfigured follwing the next round of electoral district redistribution.