Dion visited the Norwood Fall Fair in Peterborough riding this afternoon. He spent about an hour touring the fair and meeting voters. I went and snapped pictures as best I could through the crowds.

Liberal supporters start gathering in anticipation of Dion’s arrival.

A canine supporter

Dion and Peterborough candidate Betsy McGregor kindly pose for a photo.

Dion waves goodbye as he gets back on the campaign bus.

(Cross-posted at my blog)

It’s a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend and Orillia sparkled as the neat little city it is when Stephane Dion and two busloads of national media drew up to the Farmers’ Market behind the Orillia Opera House for a noontime rally.

I’d come along to see what kind of reception Dion would receive from small town Ontario Saturday shoppers. He got a warm, even enthusiastic welcome, as a horde of Liberal volunteers surrounded him with placards and cheers as he made his way through the crowd.

Stephane Dion with Barrie candidate Rick Jones, left, and Simcoe North candidate Steve Clarke, right, showing appreciation for young musicians

Dion gave a good stump speech. He appealed for the “progressive vote” and told NDP supporters that they and the Liberals share the same social values but only a Liberal vote can stop Stephen Harper. That’s certainly true in this riding, at least.

“Stephen Harper is building his campaign on a lie. He will lose on a lie,” Dion told the audience.

He was referring to the oft-repeated Tory charge that Dion’s Green Plan will hurt Canadians because it includes a carbon tax. The fact the Green Shift includes income tax cuts is never mentioned by the Tories.

Dion threw in a good word for Elizabeth May, expressing the hope she’ll be elected in Central Nova.

Asked about whether the trembling economy would hold up implementation of Liberal promises, Dion said his party has a four-year plan. He committed himself to carrying out all its goals, including child care and a catastrophic drug plan, within that time frame. But there may have to be some delays in the first year or two, he said, depending on economic conditions.

The Liberals know their only chance of forming a minority government is to stop the siphoning off of left-of-center votes. The Greens have probably been the major factor so far in the Liberals having dropped in the polls from their 30 per cent level in the 2006 belection. The Conservatives are down also, but if only one voter in three marks their ballot for a Tory on Tuesday, Harper will have won.

Won what? That’s the question. He’ll have to take more seats than the Liberals and the NDP combined, in order to withstand an immediate test in Parliament.

From the looks of the campaign in Simcoe North, one of those close Ontario battleground seats, it’s going to be a squeaker between Clarke and Tory incumbent Bruce Stanton. The 1,200-vote edge by which Stanton won in 2006 (out of 60,000 votes) is no assurance the Conservatives can hold this seat. That’s why Dion was here today.

I saw Green party candidate Valerie Powell hanging around the edges of the rally. She managed to snag an interview with a couple of the national media. Powell could be the king-maker in Simcoe North on Tuesday, depending on how many people are resistent to Dion’s plea for a united “progressive” vote.

“I’ll be the greenest prime minister Canada ever had,” Dion likes to tell his rallies. He repeated that claim here today. Will it be good enough for those tempted to vote Green?

We’ll know Tuesday night. Clarke is a popular local businessman. He runs the Brewery Bay cafe on Orillia’s main street. Stanton’s case for re-election rests in part on the funding he says he’s been able to bring into the riding for public works. A good example of old fashioned stump politics. But as of right now, I’m calling Simcoe North to switch to the Liberal column when the votes are counted.

www.wildaboutwriting.com

We’re coming down the stretch, and I thought I’d post a few little tidbits from the local campaigns.

Conservative Fréchette in Hull-Aylmer a former Liberal

It was reported in Le Droit today that Conservative candidate Paul Fréchette was formerly a member of the Liberal Party until January 2006. In fact, he contributed $300 to Marcel Proulx’s campaign in 2004.

Fréchette says that he left the party because of the sponsorship scandal, but considering he left only in January 2006 (when Liberal fortunes took a turn for the worst) that reasoning sounds a little unlikely.

More likely is Proulx’s hypothesis, which is that Fréchette switched to the Conservatives because he saw an opportunity in the wake of Lawrence Cannon’s success in Pontiac.

Mulcair in Gatineau

Thomas Mulcair, the only New Democrat MP from Quebec, was in Gatineau this morning in support of local NDP candidate Françoise Boivin. This just demonstrates how seriously the NDP considers its chances in the riding. I imagine that, after Outremont, this is where the NDP thinks it could take a second seat in Quebec.

Conservative Candidate in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and his Religious Views

Le Droit also reported on Conservative MP Pierre Lemieux’s campaign in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, the Eastern Ontario riding where I grew up.

Apparently, Lemieux thinks neither his fervent Catholicism nor his opposition to gay marriage and abortion will hurt his chances against Liberal Dan Boudria.

Fervent, says I? Well, Lemieux has a picture of the Pope (yes, the Pope) in his Parliamentary office. And in his former place of employment he had a statue of the Virgin Mary.

He has participated in several anti-choice rallies on Parliament Hill during his tenure as MP, and one of his daughters was master of ceremonies for some sort of National Pro-Life Walk.

Taking all of this into account, does anyone seriously believe that Pierre Lemieux can separate his faith – which is not shared (and especially practised) by all his constituents – from his political decisions?

Hopefully, this riding will re-elect the Liberals.

Cross-posted to Sovereignty en Anglais.

Driving through Ottawa today, I noticed a stark difference between political signs there and those in Gatineau. And, having recently driven through eastern Ontario and virtually all of Quebec, I daresay it may be a provincial thing.

The signs in Ontario are boring.

Quebec has beautiful signs, with the faces of candidates, different colours, slogans, and simply good design. And this extends to all of the parties – Bloc, Conservative, Liberal, and even NDP.

In Ontario, signs are usually only two colours and have nothing but the party logo and the name of the candidate. No picture, rarely a slogan. What gives?

And in Gatineau, virtually all of the signs are wrapped around telephone polls and lamp posts. In Ottawa, they are large signs on the sides of highways and street corners or small ones stuck into front lawns.

Why is there such a great difference between the two locations? I can’t even begin to posit why.

Prince Edward-Hastings is a riding that you can drive across in 15 minutes, but takes over two hours to drive from North to South. It runs like a knife from the Bancroft area, down to the southern tip of Prince-Edward County, which juts out into the middle of lake Ontario. The major population centre is Belleville (@ 48 000) and includes Bancroft, Tweed, Madoc, and Picton.

At this time, there are three officially nominated candidates in PEH according to the Elections Canada Website. They are incumbent Tory Daryl Kramp, Liberal challenger Ken Cole, and NDP mainstay Michael McMahon, who’s back in the ring to take another swing.

Liberal Ken Cole has so far run a very aggressive campaign. Even as long as a year ago, he was renting signs in Belleville, to try and get some much needed exposure. Nevertheless, he’s fighting an uphill battle against Tory MP Daryl Kramp who turned the riding Blue in 2004, by eking out a narrow victory against Liberal Bruce Knutson subsequent to Lyle Vanclief’s retirement. He increased his margin of victory substantially against Dr. Robert Vaughan in 2006.

If sign wars are any gauge of what is going on, at this point, at least in urban Belleville, where the Liberals strength traditionally lies, it’s about even between Kramp and Cole, with the odd McMahon sign here and there. However, if past results are any indication, the McMahon signs are plentiful in Bancroft, while Kramp signs dominate elsewhere.

Despite Mr. Cole’s efforts, which might have helped him overcome an incumbent’s advantage under different circumstances, my view is that the disastrous national Liberal campaign being run thus far will negate his best efforts, and this riding will stay blue, and by a healthy margin.

It’s still early days yet, and much can happen. Stay tuned!

Peterborough Conservative candidate Dean Del Mastro has been having a few problems with the spelling of the word “re-elect” on some of his signs. Surprisingly, no one in his office noticed until supporters started bringing the signs back. This isn’t the first time Del Mastro has been criticized in the local media for his spelling, last spring he came under fire when a few of his numerous mail-outs where found to contain typos.

I have toured the riding of Barrie and in the Orillia area. As far as I can see be the sign war, the battles in this area is between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The NDP and Greens may make some head way but that is unlikely. The last time the NDP won in this area was at the provincial level in 1990.

I would categorize Barrie right now as too-close-to-call. The Liberals can win if they remind voters of the Conservative candidate’s shameless self-promotion using taxpayers money with massive mailings which were blatantly partisan. If the national Liberal campaign can can more agressive then this may happen here in Barrie.

Stephen Harper’s hopes for a Conservative majority will be tested in ridings like Simcoe North, a sprawling seat north of Lake Simcoe that switched to the Tories in 2006, but by fewer than 1,200 out of nearly 60,000 votes.

I’ll be tracking the campaign in this pivotal central Ontario riding, likely to be a bellweather of the dozens of potential swing seats across the province.

It’s a very traditional riding — 93 per cent white and 90 per cent English, nudged against the Muskoka resort country, its small towns dependent largely on public service jobs plus whatever the tourist industry can bring in during the summers. This past summer was not agood one for the riding’s resort keepers.

No one knows that better than the Conservative incumbent, Bruce Stanton, who runs The Cottages at Port Stanton. It’s been in his family for five generations.

Stanton took the seat away from the Liberals in 2006, defeating a feisty woman opponent, Karen Graham. By local measures, Stanton’s done well as a “constituency man” in his first, truncated term.

This time, the Liberals have nominated Steve Clarke, who’s also tourism-related as the owner of the Brewery Bay Food Company, a popular restaurant on Orillia’s main street. He’s well known in the largest town in the riding, and looks to be running a strong campaign.

A sidelight to Clarke’s campaign is that he’s a strong advocate of preferential voting, which he calls “instant run-off.” Rather than plumping with an X, voters would mark their ballots in order of their preference. It’s not new — B.C. tried it back in 1951.

When I dropped into the Clarke campaign office, I was told they’re getting a great response to Clarke, but that Stephane Dion is arousing mixed feelings. A couple of hundred people turned out last Thursday midday for a visit by Michael Ignatieff, the deputy Liberal leader.

The NDP’s not a factor in this riding, nor are the Greens likely to be. They’ve put up a credible candidate, Valerie Powell, a gerontologist. She could pick up votes on the coattails of Elizabeth May if her leader does well in the TV debates.

I’ll be doing some mainstreeting and will pass on what I hear.

Ray Argyle

www.wildaboutwriting.com

Peterborough, being a bell weather riding, is always destined to be a close race. Lawn signs for both the Liberals and Conservatives started appearing almost instantaneously after the writ was dropped and have been appearing in roughly equal numbers ever since.

Both parties have also already brought in high profile MPs for campaign events, Martha Hall-Findlay for the Liberals and Jim Flaherty for the Conservatives. The Conservatives are also pushing a rail transit line exclusively for Peterborough. However, when they initially made the announcement about it in the last budget neither GO Transit or Via Rail wanted anything to do with it making the promise a little more than an attempt at a vote grab.