{"id":61103,"date":"2015-09-10T11:46:03","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T03:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=61103"},"modified":"2016-05-31T10:14:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T14:14:59","slug":"battered-battleground-federal-leaders-focus-on-vote-rich-ontario-heartland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/09\/10\/battered-battleground-federal-leaders-focus-on-vote-rich-ontario-heartland\/","title":{"rendered":"Battered battleground: Federal leaders focus on vote rich Ontario heartland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Liberal<\/a>
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and NDP leader Tom Mulcair (Facebook photos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2013 Battleground Ontario: starved for jobs, but swimming in votes.<\/p>\n

Hardly surprising, then, that the three main federal leaders found themselves using the province\u2019s ailing manufacturing sector as a backdrop Wednesday for a one-day clash of economic visions.<\/p>\n

Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair all focused their campaigns in southern Ontario\u2019s manufacturing heartland, where one of the country\u2019s most powerful economic engines has been sputtering for years.<\/p>\n

Harper spoke for nearly an hour in a controlled question-and-answer session with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, one of his favourite public event formats for burnishing his credentials as a steward of the economy.<\/p>\n

Harper fielded a series of soft, policy-laden questions as he attacked the economic bona fides of both the Trudeau Liberals and Mulcair\u2019s New Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will tell you this right now, looking at Ontario, looking at Alberta… if we get a high-tax Liberal or NDP government federally that will be absolute disaster for this country,\u201d Harper said in Welland, Ont., to partisan applause.<\/p>\n

In Niagara Falls, Mulcair made a five-year, $90-million spending pledge for the federal automotive supplier innovation program. \u201cIt\u2019s time to get good-paying auto manufacturing jobs back to these communities,\u201d he said at an auto parts factory.<\/p>\n

But Mulcair continued to face pressure to explain how he would balance next year\u2019s budget with a menu of big-ticket campaign promises, and which ones he would forgo if necessary to make it happen.<\/p>\n

Among other things, the NDP has promised to create one million $15-a-day child-care spaces, which carries a $5 billion annual price tag once fully implemented after eight years.<\/p>\n

In Toronto, Trudeau said a Liberal government would allow Canadians to repeatedly dip into their registered retirement savings to pay for a home. Current rules only permit a single withdrawal for first-time home buyers.<\/p>\n

Trudeau said allowing access to RRSPs to buy a home \u201cis something that will help Canadians in concrete ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was Trudeau\u2019s remarks in a CBC interview the night before \u2013 \u201ca large percentage of small businesses are actually just ways for wealthier Canadians to save on their taxes,\u201d he said \u2013 that attracted the most lightning from his two main rivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, seriously \u2013 seriously,\u201d an incredulous Harper said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall and medium-sized business is the backbone of this economy and that\u2019s why we\u2019re going to keep taxes down and strengthen small business in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malcolm Allen, an Ontario NDP candidate, called on Trudeau to apologize for \u201csmearing\u201d small business owners as tax cheats.<\/p>\n

Green party Leader Elizabeth May released her party’s platform Wednesday, which promises billions of dollars for the environment, health care and support for seniors \u2013 without running a deficit.<\/p>\n

And she predicted an important third-party role for her Greens after the Oct. 19 vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cA minority Parliament can be a four-year period of respectful, deliberative, productive work for the people of Canada, or it can be a year or two of hyper-partisan squabbling and bickering,\u201d May said in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference between those choices is how many Green members of Parliament are elected to work across party lines to give Canadians the government they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tragic silhouette of little Alan Kurdi, meanwhile, was still shaping the debate on the Conservative campaign.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s response to the crisis has been front and centre in the last week, thanks to the now-iconic image of the three-year-old Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish beach.<\/p>\n

That appeared to frustrate at least one Conservative supporter at an event in Welland, Ont., who heckled a reporter as she was asking Harper about the crisis.<\/p>\n

As the question began, a low, collective groan was heard in the crowd before a lone voice was heard to say: \u201cHow many kids drowned in pools in Canada this past summer? Do you blame the government for that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Harper tried to intervene, telling the reporter to \u201cgo ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime minister is under pressure to admit more refugees, and Harper said he will \u2013 but while taking care to avoid allowing terrorists from a war zone into Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are talking about a terrorist war zone a lot of people are coming from. We will make sure we are also protecting Canadians from the security risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trudeau criticized Harper over his security concerns, citing examples dating back more than a century, when Canadians helped people fleeing Europe, Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, security concerns didn\u2019t stop Wilfrid Laurier from bringing in record numbers of Ukrainians,\u201d Trudeau told supporters in Toronto.<\/p>\n

\u201cLouis St. Laurent didn\u2019t let security concerns stop him from welcoming \u2013 at the height of the Cold War \u2013 tens upon tens of thousands of Hungarian refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor did the government of his father, Pierre, \u201clet security concerns prevent him from welcoming in thousands upon thousands of Ismaili refugees fleeing Idi Amin in Uganda\u201d in the 1970s, Trudeau added.<\/p>\n

And he noted that the short-lived government of former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark \u2013 who briefly drove Pierre Trudeau\u2019s government from power \u2013 helped alleviate the Vietnamese refugee crisis at the end of the 1970s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2013 Battleground Ontario: starved for jobs, but swimming in votes. Hardly surprising, then, that the three main federal leaders …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":60368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,483],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-61103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-politics","tag-original","mauthors-mike-blanchfield","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}