Leaders struggle to cover ground in final days of campaign

KITCHEN – The battle for hearts and minds in Monday’s election couldn’t be more fierce as the leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties toured southwestern Ontario and the greater Toronto area over the weekend and held a last call for support.

The Star’s poll tracker, Vox Pop Labs, said Liberals and Conservatives are now tied for 31.9 percent of popular support, but it gives a growing advantage in seats to Liberals, who would take 155, exactly. the same number they had when the election was called, for the Conservatives’ projected number of seats of 122. The NDP could increase its number of seats to 35 and the Greens could get 2. The BQ would become the fourth party with 23 seats, and the Popular Party could take one.

As the race goes to the end, the attacks become more pointed.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said it was “not Canadian” for liberal leader Justin Trudeau to call an election in the midst of a public health crisis, vowing that he would “never call an election in a health crisis.” He stopped short of saying that he would not activate one in less than four years if the next government is a liberal minority.

The Conservative leader’s tour stopped at the candidates’ offices in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge region, where he criticized his five-week message about an “unnecessary” pandemic election, and combined it with a scathing attack on the “ego” of Trudeau and an election O’Toole called it a mere “vanity project.”

With polls suggesting the Conservative campaign is in trouble heading into Monday’s federal vote, the Conservative leader’s tour appeared to be on automatic pilot. There were no impromptu forays into public spaces like St. Jacob’s Farmers Market, the largest in Canada. O’Toole said he “overlooked” Saturday morning but was focused on boosting his troops, many of whom appear deflated by headlines that the race may be slipping away from him after polls suggested. previously that a conservative minority was within their grasp.

However, O’Toole hardly deviated from his message, now amplified with more personal criticisms of Trudeau.

“This pandemic choice is vain, risky and selfish. In fact, he’s not Canadian, ”O’Toole said in prepared remarks at a campaign stop in southern Ontario on horseback from Flamborough-Glanbrook.

“Still, despite what it was called, there is a lot at stake in this election … In this environment, it is understandable that people are looking for alternatives, looking to change things, trying to show that they are tired of everything.”

“Make no mistake, voting for other parties that cannot win, no matter how aggrieved or angry you feel, will not get Trudeau out.”

That point, that voters are angry and looking for alternatives, was a more or less explicit appeal to voters who left the Conservative fold and supported their vote with Maxime Bernier’s insurgent People’s Party of Canada.

Throughout this region, purple PPC signs dot the lawns of public spaces. A conservative supporter at an O’Toole rally in St. Catharines on Friday night said he was shocked by the scope of Bernier’s party and the anger of voters that was manifesting at the gates.

But in O’Toole’s campaign, his top officials insist the mood is good and remain confident they can get his vote.

They will have to.

According to The Signal, the Vox Pop Labs poll tracker for Star, PPC is gaining 6.5 percent nationwide. High-level sources on O’Toole’s campaign insist that not only are conservative voters flocking to Bernier’s movement, but it is clear that several of them are.

PPC support may not be enough to win Bernier seats. But it may be enough to deny conservatives seats in tight contests.

After a sometimes scathing campaign, O’Toole acknowledged that a significant number of voters are angry, calling that anger “justified.”

“But there is one way, and only one, to send a message to Justin Trudeau. There is only one way to show him the door, and that is to vote for the Conservatives on Monday, ”O’Toole said.

Trudeau raced around the GTA in an attempt to motivate workers and party supporters on Saturday and made it a point to go on a conservative-controlled walk, where Leona Alleslev, a former Liberal MP who crossed the field, is running.

The Liberals are hell-bent on claiming the seat and have invested money and campaign resources in it.

Trudeau stopped by the headquarters of liberal candidate Leah Taylor Roy, her third event in 24 hours that she attended. There, about 100 volunteers crowded the backyard to listen to the liberal leader and pose for photographs. Across the street were four small purple and white PPC signs and three large “re-elected” Leona Alleslev.

A man appeared to protest and shouted: “This country is going to shit because of you Justin Trudeau … You are going to leave on Monday.”

Trudeau then went to greet liberal supporters and curious onlookers at the Newmarket Farmers Market.

An older man named Richard, who refused to give his last name, stood on the edge of a large circle, conservative posters in hand, and was trying to get into the media plane.

“This time, more than anything else, it’s anyone but Justin,” Richard told The Star. “The scandal, the expense, the arrogance, come on.”

During the final three days of the campaign, O’Toole stopped crossing the country in his campaign plane, choosing instead to travel by bus around the Golden Horseshoe and GTA, before returning to his Durham trip to vote and see the results on monday. .

However, Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will be in the west for one last sprint. Trudeau returns to Montreal for Election Day and Singh will land in British Columbia, where he is running.

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Reference-www.thestar.com

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