Canary in the Coal Mine (3)

The purpose of these posts is to regularily interview someone I caonsider a fairly typical Ontario Liberal voter who can be swayed by the campaigns. The idea is to follow the attitudes and perceptions of this person as a barometer to how the campaigns are going and what the composition of the government might be after 23 Jan.

The Canary is my Father.

See the below posts for past info.

Canary in the Coal Mine

Canary in the Coal Mine (1)

Canary in the Coal Mine (2)

Jan 8 to Jan 18. Turnaround in the works for the Libs?

I had a bit or trouble contacting the Canary this week. My parents have been out a lot, babysitting for my sister. I was only able to speak to my Dad today, so this includes everything up to this point.

I hate to go against the conventional wisdom, but I think the Liberal attacks and the "scary" Harper stuff is getting some traction, at least in my father's case.

Although Dad says that there were no significant election stories this week and he states that he is still leaning towards the Conservatives, he sounded less sure about voting Tory this week than last. He read the Toronto Star endorsement of Martin, and said they made some good points. The fact that the TStar admitted Martin made some mistakes seemed to mitigate the whole Liberal corruption, adscam, etc, in his eyes. I specifically asked him about the corruption, and he said, "Scandals are hard to stop". I guess this is the old "everyone is corrupt" argument.

Still, he thinks that Harper has "conducted himself well" but his is concerned that Harper may not be a Red Tory. He wishes Harper was less conservative. Since I was wearing my journalist hat, I had to stop myself from biting through my tongue to keep myself from attacking that statement.

Dad seems to still have some deep seated feeling in his gut that Harper is still "scary". He couched this by saying he was scared about some policies, specifically that Harper would give more power to the provinces. I don't believe there is anything in the Troy platform about more power to the provinces, perhaps just about the feds no longer stepping on provincial toes. It shows that there is still some of the scary Harper meme left over from the last election.

We discussed the polls indicating a possible Conservative majority government. Dad does not want to see that happen and still thinks it will be a Tory minority. He thinks that, once in the booth, many Liberals who were thinking of voting conservative (such as him) will "chicken out" and vote Liberal on Monday. He was quite ready to admit he was in that position.

We shall see what happens on Monday. I hope to talk to him after he votes and find out which way he voted.

Dad has not seemed to consider voting NDP. Strange considering Oshawa is a strong GM town.