Martin aides debate June election

By JANE TABER and CAMPBELL CLARK
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

(Ottawa)  Prime Minister Paul Martin's key strategists told senior Ontario
Liberals on the weekend that they are willing to gamble on a June election
even though public-opinion polls have the party in minority territory.

They indicated to MPs and campaign workers at a strategy session in Toronto
on Saturday that they believe the Liberals can win a majority government by
portraying Conservative Leader Stephen Harper as a right-wing extremist
over such policies as his support for the war in Iraq.

Liberal Party pollsters were in the field last week asking Ontarians
whether they were "more or less likely to vote for the
Conservative/Alliance if you knew they had been taken over by evangelical
Christians."

This was clearly a campaign-style poll to test-drive a negative campaign
against Mr. Harper.

"We're going to be drawing some pretty careful distinctions between
Stephen Harper and Paul Martin," a senior Liberal strategist said,
adding the Liberals plan to paint the Conservative leader as "radical
and right-wing" and "very non-mainstream" with a "very
American style."

Several senior Liberals insisted yesterday that Mr. Martin had not yet
decided the timing of an election. Some of his Quebec organizers have
seemed far more reticent than his anglophone advisers to call a spring
election.

Still, some MPs and campaign organizers yesterday predicted a June 7 or
June 21 election date based on the weekend strategy session, saying they
were given no hint to delay their campaign plans.

It appears the campaign will emphasize Mr. Martin as the leader most able
to address concerns around health care, waiting times, affordability of
postsecondary education, wasteful spending, transportation, infrastructure
and Canada's place in the world.

Liberals are also testing their plans for Senate reform as a possible
election issue. In the survey last week, Liberal pollsters asked Ontario
residents if they would be more inclined to vote for Mr. Martin if he took
his plans to change the Senate to a national referendum if the provinces
did not agree with him.

National election campaign co-chairman David Herle delivered an upbeat
analysis of Liberal election hopes at the Toronto gathering, even though he
acknowledged that poll numbers suggest the party may fall short of a
majority government.

He told MPs, candidates and organizers that most private and public polls
show the Liberals in first place in British Columbia, well ahead in the
Atlantic, but hurting in Quebec, according to an insider. Mr. Herle
explained the situation in Quebec as being the result of an "unpopular
provincial government [that] is not helping us."

Mr. Herle also said Mr. Martin is running 15 points ahead of the party in
Ontario, a figure other pollsters discount. He said they are still polling
in Ontario but the numbers are encouraging and that Liberals are
"competitive" and have a "chance to win every riding."

Mr. Martin delivered several partisan attacks on Mr. Harper in Saturday's
workshop for Ontario Liberals, including a blast at Mr. Harper's call for
Canada to join the war in Iraq.

Mr. Martin told the MPs that he is proud of former Prime Minister Jean
Chrtien's legacy of refusing to join the war, and criticized Mr. Harper for
going to the United States to appear on a Fox News program and criticize
the Liberal government for refusing to have Canada join the war.

Yesterday, Mr. Harper said he stood by his position that Canada should have
offered "moral support" for the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, opposition MPs say no legislative agenda is preventing the
government from calling an election.

"The government doesn't have a legislative agenda," said NDP
Leader Jack Layton. "Here's a man who's been trying to be prime
minister for many, many years and he arrives and he doesn't have a single
piece of new, original legislation to put before the House."



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