The political truism is that “change” is good. Except when change isn’t the kind of change voters want, in which case change is bad. Got that?

It’s not an idle question. There are, or have been, a bunch of federal, provincial and territorial election campaigns taking place this year. In each one, the concept of “change” has or will be a factor.

The reason why you hear about change so much during election years is simple: It’s a simple, inoffensive way of saying “throw the bums out” — we want a new direction, new faces, new energy. It’s a powerful message, too.

Brian Mulroney rode “change” to a massive victory over the tired old Grits in 1984. Jean Chretien rode “change” to a massive victory over tired old Tories in 1993. Stephen Harper’s win in 2006 wasn’t massive, but it had everything to do with change. Barack Obama was arguably the most successful “change” campaign ever — he crushed Republicans across the U.S. People wanted change, people voted for it.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also greatly benefited from change in 2003, when his campaign slogan was “Choose Change.”

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Check this out:

…the only thing I’ve ever seen on Tristan Emmanuel’s name is his comment to The Globe and Mail in 2005 when he was asked:

Asked if Emmanuel — it means “God with us” — is his birth name, he replies: “That’s an area I don’t want to get into.”

How very interesting. Comments/tips gratefully accepted on Hudak’s man, please and thank you.

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GritChik this morning, who I want to quote word-for-word:

“I’ve been posting all summer about Hudak’s record on abortion. (He’s pro-life and has pledged to defund abortions on a petition he first denied signing, then finally ‘fessed up to it). All summer this issue has dogged him but he stupidly refused to answer any questions from the media and now sees his party sliding in the polls, in part, because of it.

On Saturday I posted about a new pro-Conservative group that boasts Tristan Emmanuel as one of its creators. Emmanuel is a far-right evangelical preacher who is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage and homosexuality.

To wit:

In a 2005 interview with the Hamilton Spectator, Emmanuel described homosexuality as “a choice,” said that he regarded it as “the wrong choice, a bad choice,” and further argued that “the state shouldn’t sanction wrong choices.”

And:

[Emmanuel] has described homosexuals as sexual deviants.

Where am I going with this? Well, Tim Hudak’s abortion quotes, helpfully captured by the Canadian Life Coalition, also highlighted this:

Tim Hudak believes that it’s “government’s role” to ensure the success of the “traditional family.” Tristan Emmanuel, the anti-gay activist, is one of the leaders of a group whose sole purpose is to elect Tim Hudak premier of Ontario.

Hudak should be judged by the company he keeps. Elect Hudak and you’ve also given people like Emmanuel a seat at the table.”

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Can a Conservative win?

Particularly a Conservative who, as junior health minister, oversaw the firing of 6,000 nurses, the closing of 7,000 hospital beds – and even the closure of 28 hospitals?

If that’s the question – and voters say it is – then the Conservative in question is in big trouble.

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Recent attack ads against Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak seem to have found their target, with Dalton McGuinty’s governing Liberals closing the gap between the two provincial parties, a new Nanos Research poll shows…

The negative ads launched by both the Conservatives and the Liberals have narrowed the race but it is too early to predict longer-term trends, pollster Nik Nanos cautioned.

The Liberal surge is explained by the proximity of their attack-ad campaign, Mr. Nanos said.

Mr. McGuinty…fought back last month by launching his own negative campaigning initiative, unveiling ads that said Mr. Hudak treated voters like “dolts” and “chumps.”

Support for the Liberals rose from 34 per cent in May to 37.6 per cent in the latest Nanos poll, conducted last week for the Globe and Mail and CTV.

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CTV / Nanos poll, broadcast on CTV Toronto @ 6pm:

PC – 42.1
OLP – 37.6
NDP – 16.2

1000 voters, Aug 10-12th

What’s it mean?

It means we Ontario Liberals have to work even harder, to earn the support of working Ontario families.

And we will!

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(EDITOR’S WARNING: If you are a federal Conservative, this column may make you faint. You are advised to immediately locate the smelling salts and lay down on the couch before proceeding any further.)

Yes, folks, it’s true: I am about to say something nice about Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Me, the resident Bolshevik at Sun Media. Me, the guy who never met a Conservative he didn’t like.

Here goes: Over the past few days, in which economic turmoil has left quite a few of us feeling exceedingly nervous, Jim Flaherty has been doing a not-bad job. A good job, even.

There, I said it.

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The Star broke a story yesterday that a front group calling itself People For A Better Ontario has been created to oppose the Ontario Liberals of Dalton McGuinty. The group is vehemently anti-abortion. anti-gay and anti-separation of church and state.

And they support Tim Hudak because he shares their vision for Ontario – anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-fairness.

What I found most interesting in the Star story is that a leader of the shadowy group is far right extremist Tristan Emmanuel. That Tim Hudak would seek the assistance of Emmanuel should concern everyone. Here’s a few reasons why, courtesy of a work colleague:

• Toronto Sun, March 31, 2009 – MPP Randy Hillier officially joined the race for leader of the Ontario PC Party yesterday with a pledge to abolish the Ontario Human Rights Commission and outlaw mandatory union membership…Hillier’s spokesman is Tristan Emmanuel, a political and religious activist who has organized protests against same-sex marriage.
• Toronto Star, May 15, 2009 – The federal Conservatives are crying foul against their provincial cousins in Ontario for alleged misuse of the national party’s membership list…The missive was sent to Andrew Boddington, Tristan Emmanuel, Mark Spiro and Paul Sutherland, senior campaign officials with candidates and MPPs Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington), Tim Hudak (Niagara West-Glanbrook) and Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora), respectively.
• Wikipedia – Emmanuel was a candidate for the socially conservative Family Coalition Party in the Lincoln electoral division in the 1995 Ontario provincial election. He was quoted as saying, “It’s time to have a principled party that understands there’s a higher power than the government, a power we believe is God.”
• Wikipedia – Emmanuel ran against prominent federal politician Sheila Copps in a 1996 by-election as a candidate of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada. He argued that Canada’s Young Offenders Act should be abolished and corporal punishment reintroduced to schools, and was quoted as saying, “If an eleven-year-old murders someone, I think his life should be taken.”
• Wikipedia – In April 2003, he organized a “Canadians for Bush” rally in Queenston Heights, Ontario, to support the American invasion of Iraq. The rally was attended by several prominent federal and provincial politicians, including Stockwell Day and provincial cabinet ministers Jim Flaherty and Tim Hudak.
• Wikipedia – [The release quoted] excerpts from several of Emmanuel’s writings, asserting that he had described gay men as “sexual deviants” and Islam as “as far from peace, as hell is from heaven” in separate articles written in 2002.
• Wikipedia – Emmanuel campaigned against the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Canada in 2005, organizing several rallies across the country, including one outside Parliament Hill in Ottawa and another at Queen’s Park outside the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
• Wikipedia – In a 2005 interview with the Hamilton Spectator, Emmanuel described homosexuality as “a choice,” said that he regarded it as “the wrong choice, a bad choice,” and further argued that “the state shouldn’t sanction wrong choices.”

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Following that Ipsos poll showing his party losing whatever lead they had – principally, I’m told, because of voter concerns about a “hidden agenda” on abortion and a Conservative cabal running all three levels of government – Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak has come off his vacation early, and hastily scheduled a presser for a Friday afternoon.

Cutting short a holiday? Friday afternoon press conferences? It’s all consistent with what we’ve been hearing: the tall foreheads in the Hudak-Hillier PCs are panicked that they peaked too soon, and that abortion and the Harper-Hudak-Ford Trifecta stuff is hurting them, big time.

Have a great press conference, Tim! We’re rooting for your continued weaselly leadership!

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From a  quick-witted Ontario Liberal staffer, about this:

TORONTO – Andrea Horwath wants a little elbow room for cyclists.

“We think that that’s a simple measure that if there’s a cyclist on the road, it’s incumbent on the motorized vehicle to stay away by a metre from that cyclist,” the New Democratic Party Leader said Thursday.

“So if that means that you have slow down and wait until you can safely be a metre away from the cyclist, then that’s what you need to do,” she said. “We have to get serious about making sure that people can safely ride bicycles in this province.”

Horwath said if elected on Oct. 6, her party would change the Highway Traffic Act so that motorists would be fined for crowding out two-wheeled traffic.

But how police would enforce such a rule on packed and narrow roads wasn’t entirely clear.

Personally, I’m not quite sure how this one is going to go down in Timmins or Bancroft.

But one Lib staffer had the best line of the Summer:

“The Ontario NDP want motorists to move far to the left – and voters, too.  But they won’t!”

 

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