Canvassing voters door to door is the essence of the political process. That’s why I looked forward to joining Steve Clarke, the Liberal federal election candidate in Simcoe North, as he made the rounds of Lagoon City Monday evening.

The calls we made reminded me that Canadians are always (well, almost always) polite at the doorstep.

The canvass also reminded me that you don’t get much of a real discussion of the issues during these calls. Candidates of all parties can’t afford the time to get into detailed debate about their party’s platform, or the shortcomings of the other guy’s. The idea is to meet and greet, shake the hand, pledge that you’ll work hard if you’re elected, and then get on to the next house.

A couple of things impressed me about Steve Clarke when we made the rounds.

 Steve Clarke, Liberal, Simcoe North (Ontario)

The first was his obvious commitment to being a good “constituency man.” In Canadian politics, that’s usually where it’s at. He invited people to phone him with any problems and committed to getting action for them.

Steve’s Conservative opponent, the incumbent Bruce Stanton, has “worked” the riding hard since his election two years ago. He’s had the benefit of incumbency (householder mailings, making government announcements, etc) and has a good chance of re-election.

But Simcoe North is a swing riding. It was a Liberal seat for years and in 2006 Stanton took it by fewer than 1,200 votes out of 60,000 cast.

That brings me to the other thing that impressed me about Clarke. He’s got a firm grasp of the issues, and nails hard any point that a voter brings up, whether it’s for or against his party.

Lagoon City is largely a retirement community and he made a good case for the tax reductions and the increased social benefits that seniors are promised in the Liberal Green Shift. The Liberal promise to drop the tax on income trust earnings is also popular with seniors who had bought these funds when the Conservatives were promising to allow the trusts to operate as usual. Then, bam, less than a year after being elected, the Conservatives put a draconian tax load on the trusts on the grounds that they’d enjoyed preferential tax treatment. Maybe, but still, a broken promise is a broken promise.

Clarke got a better reception at the door than I’d expected. Quite a few people asked for signs. He got berated by only one person who expressed a visceral dislike of the Liberal leader, Stephane Dion.

According to today’s polls, the Liberals have bottomed out and are starting to recover some support. It’s said this may be the result of voter fear of a Stephen Harper majority. Interesting that Dion says he’ll have no truck with the NDP in an anti-Harper coalition.

If enough Liberals and NDPers are elected that together they can form a majority, I suspect he’ll sing a different tune! Remember the NDP-Liberal accord in Ontario that allowed the Liberals to form a government when the provincial Tories had won the most seats? It could happen again.

Ray Argyle

www.wildaboutwriting.com