Tories and Grits alike tout Health-care message message, campaign, specific, already, health

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Tories and Grits alike tout Health-care message


Conservatives and Liberals pummelled each other over health care and democracy Saturday — the first, an issue voters say is a priority, the second, a topic that has flared up around specific campaign incidents.


At the start of the campaign's fourth week, results of a new poll for Postmedia News and Global National suggested only 57 per of Canadians were certain to vote. Of those, almost 90 per cent said they have already made up their minds. The poll on turnout is similar to the actual turnout of about 59 per cent in the 2008 election.


Result s of the Ipsos Reid poll also suggested that Conservative leader Stephen Harper and NDP leader Jack Layton are gaining the most in popularity and momentum, while the campaigns of Michael Ignatieff of the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe aren't really resonating with voters.


Harper, in Vancouver to focus his efforts on some key swing ridings, declared that the Liberals have a "shameful record" of cutting health-care spending. His remarks came after Ignatieff's Liberals released an attack ad this week that suggests a Conservative majority government would gut health-care spending.


The ad shows a menacing black-and-white photo of Harper and a green heart-rate monitor that flatlines after the narrator suggests the Conservatives would cut health transfers to the provinces. "Stephen Harper is demanding absolute power. Can you trust him with your health care?" the narrator intones.


Harper noted the Liberals had slashed health-care transfers in the 1990s to eliminate the federal deficit.


"The Liberal party has a shameful record of deep cuts in health care. That's what you get when you make promises the country can't afford," Harper said.


The Liberals, still trailing badly in the polls, have tried to turn health care into a wedge issue as the campaign heads into the home stretch. The health-care ad is reminiscent of the Liberal strategy of accusing Harper of harbouring a "hidden agenda."


Ignatieff has said the Liberals would maintain the current rate of growth in health transfers even after a deal with the provinces expires in 2014. Under the agreement, the federal government is required to increase health transfers by six per cent per year. Harper also has promised his party would maintain the six per cent rate after 2014.


In Regina, Ignatieff praised former prime minister Paul Martin, saying he deserves the credit for new federal investments in health care in recent years.


Ignatieff, who was to be joined in the evening by Martin on his campaign tour in Edmonton, credited the former Liberal leader for working with the provinces to achieve a 10-year funding agreement with the provinces in 2004.


In contrast, he said Harper had failed to build on that accord.


"Mr. Stephen Harper has not put a dime, a red nickel, a red cent into health care since he came into office," Ignatieff said. "Every single dime spent by that government is money booked by Paul Martin in the 2004 accord, and that has set the standard for the public financing of a public health-care system ever since."


The Liberals are also arguing a re-elected Harper government would erode not merely health care, but democracy itself.

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Ignatieff argued that the Conservative leader has been gradually lowering the ceiling on basic democratic principles. "And we suddenly wake up on the morning after the 2nd of May thinking, this country is less democratic than it was five years ago and why didn't we do something about it."


Earlier, in a preacher-like performance, Ignatieff had repeatedly urged a crowd in Sudbury, Ont., to "rise up" against the Conservatives. He said recent incidents, including an attempt to nullify votes at a polling station at the University of Guelph in southern Ontario, are part of a pattern of behaviour by the Tories.


Although he drew links between this and similar incidents in the Middle East, he said he wasn't calling Harper a dictator.


"I did not compare anybody to a Mideast dictator," he said. "I'm saying if somebody began to engage in manipulation of an election, you wouldn't be surprised if it was in Syria or the Middle East. But you'd be surprised if it was in Canada. That's a very different statement."


Whether Ignatieff's democracy rhetoric will win him any new friends among voters is not yet clear. He himself has come under attack from the NDP for his poor voting record in the House of Commons. Ignatieff is the leader who has missed the most votes since May, 2009.


"Mr. Ignatieff has a habit of not showing up for votes in the House of Commons," NDP leader Jack Layton told supporters in St. John's.


NDP leader Jack Layton was in St. John's, where he heard the news that former Saskatchewan premier and New Democrat stalwart Allan Blakeney had passed away at the age of 85.


Blakeney was Saskatchewan's premier for 11 years, mostly during 1970s, and is credited with bringing about social and economic change to the province


Layton said it was "with great sadness" that he learned of Blakeney's death and paid tribut to Blakeney, saying he often sought the former premier's advice.


Earlier in the day, Layton pledged a federal loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls project — part of the multi-billion dollar Lower Churchill hydroelectric initiative.


Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe received the support of the Canadian Auto Workers' Quebec division, representing more than 20,000 members.


"We had a vote and it was nearly unanimous in favour of the Bloc Quebecois," said union director Jean-Pierre Fortin, who emerged with Duceppe after a biannual council meeting.


With files from Max Harrold, Montreal Gazette


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Stephen Harper, seen here speaking to an audience in Saskatoon, says only his party has the right approach when it comes to health care.