Harper suspends news conferences
Published Monday October 13th, 2008
Politics Tory leader has no plans to take questions today, including during a stop in Fredericton
ST-TITE, Que. - Stephen Harper appears to have suspended news conferences for the duration of the election campaign as his chief rival described him Sunday as the most secretive prime minister in Canadian history.
Aides to the Conservative leader said he did not plan to take any questions Sunday, and had no news conference scheduled for today, the last day of the campaign.
Harper, who was scheduled for make a last-minute whistle-stop appearance in Fredericton this morning, ended what had been a daily ritual throughout the five-week campaign. After his customary morning speech to a partisan crowd, instead of taking questions Harper served baked beans and scrambled eggs.
He was also given a pair of cowboy boots from a group of Stetson-wearing admirers during his stop in the town of St-Tite, Quebec's country-music capital and home to a popular Western festival.
But after five weeks of campaigning against the Liberals' climate-change plan as a harbinger of economic catastrophe, one thing Harper has not done is explain how much his own climate plan will cost.
Reporters had been hoping to extract a dollar estimate from him before Tuesday's election.
"We have no more planned media availabilities," said Harper spokesman Kory Teneycke.
"That doesn't mean we can't choose to do one."
The move could help Harper stay on-message right through to election day, and to avoid having his campaign derailed like it was in 2006 by his own musings about a Conservative majority government.
This time his intended message has been a simple one: cast the Liberals' Green Shift as a path to economic disaster.
The Liberal plan would tax greenhouse-gas emissions at $40 per tonne, while cutting income taxes, and be worth a total of $15 billion in tax changes.
But the Conservatives also have a plan to cut emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020. When asked Saturday to price his own plan, Harper merely said it wouldn't cost much.
He said it might result in a three- or four-per-cent spike in energy prices.
Reporters had been hoping to get a more precise number out of him before election day, so that the costs of his plan could be compared with the one he has spent five weeks campaigning against.
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said the prime minister is now running his campaign like he's run the government.
Tory candidates have habitually been the only ones to duck out of local candidates' debates. Some have been sheltered from the national media.
And the prime minister has declined to respond to letters from advocacy groups or even provincial premiers during the election.
"(Harper) has lowered the bar on democratic practices in Canada like no prime minister ever has," Dion told reporters in Toronto.
"He is the most secretive prime minister we have ever had. And he's afraid of answering some questions."
As for the Tory climate plan, Environment Minister John Baird has estimated that compliance would cost companies $50 a tonne by 2016 and $65 by 2020. That would place the costs even higher than the Liberals' $40-a-tonne carbon tax.
But a prominent energy-environmental economist says the Conservative climate plan will actually carry much lower economic costs - for one simple reason: it doesn't do much.
"The reason is that it has a huge loophole - a 100 per cent loophole - which allows industrial emitters to not reduce their emissions by one tonne if they instead purchase offsets," said Marc Jaccard of Simon Fraser University.
"So I would characterize the Conservative policy as much cheaper than the Liberal (one). But I can always get you a cheaper policy if it has no effect on emissions."
Companies would be able to purchase offsets at $5 to $10 per tonne under the Conservative plan.
Harper hammered away at his parallel Quebec message on his final swing through the province, where he has seen his support levels wither away throughout the campaign.
In speeches to supporters Sunday, Harper repeated that key message: that Quebecers would be sidelining themselves by voting for the Bloc Quebecois.
He took exception to the way Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe has, in his opinion, demonized him during the campaign.
Harper dismissed suggestions that his platform is right-wing - and said it's pro-family instead.
He said Canada has weathered the current economic storm better than the United States because his government has made better choices than the American one, including cutting the GST.
Economists have argued that the cut on consumption taxes was the least productive tax cut his government could have introduced.
But Harper said the GST cuts and his other income-tax reductions have contributed to Canada's robust job-creation numbers.
He contrasted Canada's economic and fiscal performance to the more dire situation in the U.S.
"Americans are running deficits. We're running surpluses. Americans are incurring debt. We're paying down debt," he said.
"We have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years ... We have a better economic situation than the United States because, for two and a half years, we have made better choices."
He concluded his two-day swing through Quebec with a speech to 600 energetic supporters in Quebec City, earning standing ovations as he listed his accomplishments in office.
The applause was thunderous when he mentioned one of his more significant moves: a massive transfer of federal funds to the provinces to fix the so-called fiscal imbalance.
"(Conservatives') open federalism was not born yesterday. It was born almost a century and a half ago - when Georges-Etienne Cartier and the Conservatives created our federation," Harper said.
"Our concept of federalism respects the division of powers in our Constitution. And I, Stephen Harper, come from that line of Conservative leaders who have reinforced the place of the Quebecois nation within Canada."
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