Last Saturday, Liberal leader Stephane Dion made a stop in St. Catharines to meet and greet voters at the Niagara Grape & Wine festival in Montebello Park. This is the third time that Dion has visited the riding of St. Catharines since becoming leader of the Liberals. Furthermore this makes Dion the first leader to make a stop in St. Catharines (With Jack Layton & Stephen Harper both coming to Niagara but skipping past this riding.)

Aside from a large contingent of local Liberals there to greet him as he arrived, Dion was working a very non-partisan crowd. Walking to several wine and food kiosks while stopping to talk to several people attending the festival. Overall Dion was very well received, giving a boost to an already surging local Liberal campaign.

Interestingly, while Dion was in Niagara he managed to do what Stephen Harper didn’t do, which is to talk about manufacturing and job losses in the area.

Last night was the first all-candidates debate of this election in St. Catharines airing on Cogeco cabel TV.

Probably the biggest shock that came out of the debate was Rick Dykstra, after being grilled about his party’s decision to raise taxes on income trusts, admitting that his party broke it’s promise not to tax income trusts and apologizing for adding taxes to income trusts after promising not to.

“We made a commitment. We didn’t keep that commitment, and for that I apologize to the people of St. Catharines who were impacted by that decision.” (Federal Election Candidates Debate, Cogeco, September 23, 2008)

This is the first real sign that Rick Dykstra is trying to run away from the record of his party. As Jim Flaherty, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have been completely unapologetic about flip-flopping on income trusts.

The 2008 election is going to feature a rematch of the Liberal and Conservative candidates from the 2006 election.

Incumbent Rick Dykstra is once again facing off against 4 term Liberal MP Walt Lastewka. This is going to be one of the top 10 races to be watching in the country, as this riding was decided by 246 votes last time (Or one vote per polling station).

Also running for the NDP is former Brock united church chaplain Geroge Addision and for the Greens is long time candidate Jim Fannon. Neither Addision or Fannon are expected to win. Interestingly, the local Green Party & NDP headquarters are next door to each other in downtown St. Catahrines.

The start of the campaign in St. Catahrines got off to a hot start with Conservative MP Rick Dykstra touting an announcement made days before the start of the campaign that the federal & provincial governments would be investing $140 into a new transmission line at GM in St. Catharines.

However, in what Dykstra & the Conservatives hoped would be a boost for them in St. Catharines turned against them when it was revealed in the local media that:

1. Federal funds for the project did not come from new investments by the Conservatives, but rather though investments that were made by the Liberals and delivered by Walt Lastewka back in 2004.
2. The provincial government announced support and funding for this deal months ago.

The timing of this announcement was nothing more that cheap political opportunism from Dykstra and the Conservatives. And out of the gate it has hurt them here.