MacKay eyes Harper's job, post-election

Blonde, wealthy, well-connected.

Peter MacKay's latest love interest, according to well-known gossip sheet the National Lampoon Post:

Sophie Desmarais. Of that Desmarais clan. They met courtesy of Mila Mulroney. Sophie's clan is tight with Liberals like Jean Chretien.

Way to go, Peter.

Now, just a few weeks to go before you can start the campaign to boot Harper and take his job.

As reminiscent of medieval Italian politics as this all seems, Peter might have learned to be a little less obvious. Nicolo would not be pleased.

Custodial management almost impossible to deliver

Memorial University political science prof David Close threw some cold water on people who think "custodial management" is a simple answer to fisheries problems.

Close said while CM is easy to advocate it is almost impossible to achieve. He said it is not at all clear that Canada could unilaterally lay claim to waters outside the 200 mile exclusive economic zone.

If that isn't good enough for you, there's a slightly different view from the dean of the Dalhousie law school. it adds up to the same thing, though: CM is easy to say but hard to do.

Moving forward is good enough for the Premier

It should be good enough for Liam over at RGL.

Apparently not.

He preferred to quote people from American political action groups to argue against government-funded child care outside the home for families where both parents work. Of course, he didn't see fit to disclose who these people actually were and the political action committees they work for.

Well, here's what Danny Williams had to say back in May when the province and federal government signed an agreement on early childhood education and child care:

"Making sure that our youngest citizens get the best start in life is one of the most important priorities for parents and families in our province," said Premier Williams. "This agreement signed today will help Newfoundland and Labrador achieve its long-term vision to ensure children and families have access to a quality early learning and child care system and that early child care educators and providers receive the training and supports they need."

And for the record, here's what finance minister Loyola Sullivan said in the same announcement:

"Our government has made significant progress in building capacity, ensuring children and families have access to quality programming and improving the quality of early learning and child care in Newfoundland and Labrador," said Minister Sullivan. " We are committed to building a progressive early learning and child care program to complement the work of our Ministerial Council on Early Childhood Learning that focuses on the learning needs of children and their families. As we move forward, we will continue to consult with parents and early learning and childcare stakeholders to assist in developing the action plan for Newfoundland and Labrador."

Here are two Canadians - Progressive Conservatives and political leaders at that - who don't see anything sinister in the government providing funding for quality childcare outside the home as well as funding new initiatives in early childhood education.

Hmmmm.

Now of course, they aren't early childhood education and childcare experts, but ya know, I'd put a lot more faith in their judgment on this issue than a bunch of political activists who had obscured identities if not obscured agendas.

As for Liam, he needn't worry about someone trying to create what he calls a "Nanny" state. He's the only one talking about that nonsense.

Instead, he just needs to take a breath and get over his morbid fear of Fran Drescher.

Coast Guard tragedy

Two Coast Guard employees were killed yesterday in an incident that is still under investigation.

It appears they were traveling by helicopter between sites, conducting routine maintenance of navigation aides on the south coast of Newfoundland when the incident occurred.

The two employees were flying in a Coast Guard MBB 105, like the one pictured.

Methinks he doth protest too much

Danny Williams likes to use sales jargon, like talking about "the ask".

Well, in sales as in poker, there's a thing called "the tell". It's something that gives away the truth, despite the apparent demeanor of the other person.

Whenever anyone asks Danny Williams a question he doesn't like - that is one that comes close to the truth - he immediately turns into attack mode. He lashes out and accuses his questioner of all sorts of evil motives.

That form of personal attack, while rather entertaining to watch is actually the weakest form of argument.

And it is noticeable that when you strike close to the truth, Williams gets personal.

All the time.

It isn't just that a question is about someone close to his family, and therefore he's defending his relatives. Williams has a noticeable tendency to employ people close to his family, so much so that it's become a bit of a joke at Confederation Building, in fact. he lashes out whenever someone is getting close to the real reason for some action.

Danny Williams didn't like questions yesterday about the hiring of his daughter's fiance as a communications director with the Department of Justice. Before that, the man was a staffer in the Government Members' Office. Beyond that, no one knows what his background is.

There was no competition for the position.

The Premier lashed out at the guy asking the question - Roland Butler - who was involved in a hiring scandal several years ago. Under a different Premier, Butler's boss and others paid a price for the incident.

But the question yesterday focused on the Premier's future son-in-law, whom the Premier described in this way:

"This government has hired this bright, capable, qualified, young man in a temporary position, which is a perfectly legal thing to do and which the members opposite know is according to the rules and according to the rules of the Public Service Commission. So, he was hired in a temporary position and he is eminently qualified and that is according to law and according to rules. Shame on you!"

My questions for the Premier are simple:

1. Would the Premier please make public Bill Hickey's resume?

If he is so eminently qualified for the position, then it should be obvious why he was appointed into a position without a competition.

2. As for the competition currently underway for communications directors, would the Premier assure that it will be run fairly - not like other Public Service Commission competitions - so that incumbents, like Mr. Hickey, do not have an unfair advantage over other, eminently qualified candidates?

The questions are simple.

The replies should be equally simple.

Let's see if we can get them.

Liam quotes the American right to back Harper

In one of several megaposts lately, Liam O'Brien at RGL quoted someone named Darcy Ann Olsen, who is presented as an expert commentator on child care issues.

The link is to an outfit called The Heartland Institute. Here's some background on Heartland, courtesy of the Centre for Media and Democracy. There's another link to another article from heartland in the same piece.

It's pretty bad when you have to go to American conservative sources to bolster your arguments and neglect to point out where the quotes and comments are coming from in order to make your case.

Liam notes the Olsen piece was originally printed in a publication from the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Now this isn't a professional association for public policy types and government relations people, like the links I have on my right hand navigation bar. Nope. OCPA is the kind of group that picks Newt Gingrich as their 2006 Citizenship Award nominee.

Liam also quotes April Lassiter, who used to be a speechwriter and policy wonk for Tom Delay before heading off to the right-wing Heritage Foundation as a research fellow.

The article is a predictable one for Liam since it praises the Conservatives to the hilt and uses American conservatives to bolster much of his argument. Unfortunately, Liam won't tell you the full picture on the "authorities" he cites.

And yes he does quote a couple of polls. Frankly, as a parent of two young children, I'd like to work half time, spend more time with my children and make the same family income in some fashion. The problem with Liam's statistics is that he doesn't give you the full picture.

The 1950s model of an idyllic family disappeared with the Connie. If one member of a couple wants to devote full-time to child care these days, odds are good that the family will take a major-league hit in the bank account.

Stephen Harper's $1, 200 only applies to children under six years old and it is taxable at the full rate. For a lot of us, that money will vanish back to Ottawa through taxes.

Odd that for a party supposedly interested in supporting choice in child care and making it easier for couples to have one partner stay at home and devote full attention to child care even in the early years, I don't recall ever hearing the Conservatives support parental and maternity benefits under the Employment Insurance system being 100% of wages for a half-year or a year. Nope.

And of course, the partner's have to be of opposite sex, at least after the free vote Harper wants.

No political party has mentioned the kind of EI changes I referred to, but something tells me I'd stand a better chance of having such a policy adopted under Liberals or new Democrats than under a bunch of people who tout "choice" and throw 1200 bucks on the table.

The people who want to have a free vote in the House of Commons to overturn constitutional rights.

I doubt the sincerity of their child care effort.

As for child care spaces and early childhood education, those spaces exist and the money is there to create more.

With the Liberals.

The Battle Song of the Newfoundlanders

Courtesy of an old friend and sometimes e-mail commentator comes this link about a recent event involving HMCS Cabot, the naval reserve division in Newfoundland and Labrador.

His Honour Edward Roberts, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador presented a poster, printed in the 1950s commemorating the military and naval history of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians from earliest times to the Korean Conflict.

Thanks, Tony. The e-mails are always welcome and never frequent enough.

Controlling every little thing

These changes to the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador Act are curious if only for the fact they are entirely unnecessary.

The Order was created to honour outstanding contributions by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to their province. The selection committee consisted of a number of people, including the Chief Justice of the province and the President of Memorial University.

These two positions are now eliminated, supposedly to be replaced by two members of the order.

Unfortunately for Premier Williams explanations in the House of Assembly, his amendments to the legislation don't say that.

They simply reduce the advisory council to a committee comprising the Clerk of the Executive Council (appointed by the premier) and seven other people (also appointed ultimately by the Premier).

In any event, since the original Act didn't specify who was appointed beyond the Chief Justice, the Clerk and the university president, the government had plenty of opportunity to apppoint who they wanted or to amend the legislation to add to the council.

The switcheroo pushed by the Premier looks entirely like what it likely is: the Premier wanted to get rid of some people he didn't like and get personal control over as many appointments as possible.

At least in some instances - like the offshore board - the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will have qualified people appointed by a process the Premier can't gerrymander.

That doesn't stop the Premier from moving to control every little thing in the province.

Morrow to beat Manning

Lawyer Bill Morrow will carry the Liberal banner in Avalon.

The CBC report carries a bizarre comment: "Sandwiched between the twin Tory stronghold seats based in St. John's and Liberal-dominated ridings in the rest of the province, Avalon is emerging as the most interesting riding to watch."

Avalon is on the western border of both the St. John's ridings and drawfs them both in size. It is not "sandwiched" between them by any stretch of anyones imagination.

To call the St. john's seats "Tory strongholds" is also not based on the last voting results.

But hey, while everyone was quick to start the attacks on Art Reid, theirs was a pre-mature escalation of the political contest.

Now we can see a solid race in Avalon.

and the switcheroo in St. John's.

The real story on Gander and weather

VOCM broke the real story on Gander and weather forecasting that everyone else has been missing.

Harper: policy plagiarism - revised

Stevie Harper popped up in Petty Harbour today, just outside St. John's, to reinforce the view that all we have in Newfoundland and Labrador is fish and fishermen. His announcement in the local version of Peggy's (If I see one more "quaint" picture) Cove, focused on fish and not a helluva lot else.

The PM, by contrast, talked about lots of things during his trip here - and sounded like he was enjoying himself as he did it.

Standing side by side with Loyola Hearn, Harper proclaimed his support for a bunch of fisheries things, including a policy that would allow fishermen a capital gains break on transferring ownership of fishing vessels within the family.

He added joint management and custodial management to the pile, demonstrating conclusively that his fish man (Loyola Hearn) is stuck in the 1980s. What's next? A hydroponic cucumber factory in Mount Pearl? Double-daylight savings time?

As Greg Locke reports, one mainland journalist traveling in the Opp Leader bubble babbled that he had no idea what custodial management was. Here's a simple link.

For those who want to see it done properly, they can check the United Nations law of the Sea Convention and the current federal government approach.

Local proponents of custodial management want to force the foreigners off the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and claim the fish as ours to manage. Picking a fight with the Spaniards, French and Portuguese seems like an eminently sensible way of making sure the European Union lowers its tariffs on shrimp imported into the EU from Newfoundland and Labrador.

As for joint management, to paraphrase Harper himself on another topic, the answer to fisheries problems lies not in one group of politicians sharing power with another group of politicians. It comes from giving meaningful influence to those who depend on the fishery for their livelihood. Check the latest House of Commons fisheries committee report for just such an idea. It's blogged here.

*sigh*

Anyway, seems that the capital gains policy was lifted from bill C-343, proposed by Lawrence MacAulay back in February, 2005. It died with the government, like a bunch of other measures.

**Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan, Lib.) moved for leave to introduce Bill C-343, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (capital gains exemption on disposition of fishing property).

He said: Mr. Speaker, the Income Tax Act allows an individual to claim a $500,000 total lifetime exemption for capital gains that arise from the disposal of qualified farm property.

I am pleased to table this bill today which amends the act so that an individual may also claim this exemption in respect of qualified fishing property.

This bill is very important to the fishing industry. I urge the House to support it.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)***

Revision: Aside from the bit snipped, here's something from the Charlottetown Guardian from September.

Harper should have looked closer at bill: MP


Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay says Opposition Leader Stephen Harper should have taken a closer look at Bill 343 tabled by MacAulay last February before saying that a new Conservative government will provide a capital gains exemption for the first $500,000 of qualifying fishing
property transferred within a family. Harper said he would exempt fishermen from capital gains tax on up to $500,000 on land, licenses or equipment handed to their children. "There is just something wrong with charging capital gains tax when a fishing family wants to transfer assets from one generation to another," said Harper.

Under the Conservative plan approximately 60,000 full- and part-time fish harvesters in Canada would be affected.

But MacAulay says Harper's plan is only a half-measure. MacAulay's private member's Bill 343, given first reading Feb. 25, calls for an exemption on capital gains up to $500,000 on transactions involving any individual, not just family members.

"I just wish Harper would have looked at my bill, and he would not have limited his suggestion to families. My bill is for the entire fishing industry and it is important that it be that way in order to ensure its survival in the small business backbone of the Canadian economy."

Wells adrift in oil patch

Most of the bluster is gone.

Premier Danny Williams is accepting Max Ruelokke [pronounced roo-lock] as the new chairman and chief executive officer of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

it was almost bizarre to hear Williams praising Ruelokke's extensive experience - bizarre given that Ruelokke was likely in consideration in the round of candidates Danny Williams scuttled in favour of a completely unqualified candidate named Andy Wells.

The Premier's comments about "the process not being finished" is just some bluster to cover over the fact that he was completely outmanoeuvered by the guys who actually read the Atlantic Accord and applied the terms of the contract.

The process is finished.

Ruelokke's in.

Wells was never even close.

What Steve giveth, he taketh away too.

Flanked by his senior policy team, Conservative leader Stephen Harper today announced a $1200 allowance to be paid annually to families for each child under six years old.

Sounds great.

Then the zinger: the money will be taxable.

The Liberal proposal is to fund child care spaces in accredited facilities and support early childhood education.

Corporal Taylor - give all the facts

Left - Mobile Gun System

Not much surprise in the return of former Corporal Scott Taylor as an expert military commentator. His comments on the new transport aircraft purchase and the army's proposed mobile gun system are linked from Bourque, but here is the Taylor piece.

Taylor criticizes the proposed transport purchase by calling the J Herc a new version of the aircraft currently ins service. He's right - except that Taylor doesn't point out that there are no other aircraft currently flying that can meet the requirement.

Taylor talks about strategic airlifters. Again, there are no plans to purchase them but Taylor neglects to point out that Canada does not have a requirement for a fleet of heavy-lift aircraft that would justify the operating costs. Nor does he note that heavy lift is readily available in all foreseeable cases.

Taylor also criticizes the army's mobile gun system (MGS), essentially a version of the light armoured vehicle with a big gun on it. He notes comments by General Rick Hillier that the MGS was vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades. Note the use of the word "was" there.

The MGS and its LAV cousins were vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades. This was painfully obvious from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What Taylor didn't say was that a simple, add-on armour system corrects that flaw. The Department of National Defence has already called a tender for the add-on armour for its fleet of wheeled armoured vehicles. Problem solved.

Left - LAV III with add-on armour defeats rocket propelled grenades.

Yes, the LAV family with add-ons is now too heavy to be carried by a Hercules - but other airlift and sealift is readily available. As it is, even without the add-on armour, the Canadian Herc fleet couldn't transport enough LAVs in a short time frame anywhere in the world to make much of a difference.

In the old days, Taylor's criticisms were well-founded, largely due to the inept Department of National Defence. His job was easy - he didn't have to know much to point to really obvious problems. Taylor built a name for himself among news media as a result.

These days Taylor's criticisms are based on not providing information that is already in the public domain which contradicts his conclusions.

Way to go, Scott.

Who owns loyolahearn.com?

Ok.

While I am starting to dig deeper into the mystery of Loyola Hearn's website, he has the one he used as a member of parliament.

Not a lick of campaign information here. Last time out, Loyola reformatted the pages on the parliamentary site so he could stuff campaign materials there, then switched back again later. El cheapo, for sure.

There's still some funny stuff, though. Like the news release headlined "Hearn introduces Private Member'Â’s Bill to help restore the Democratic Deficit".

Aside from the overdone capitalization, this means that Hearn wants to bring back the democratic deficit rather than eliminate it. Doesn't anyone in his office read English?

Hearn's motion would require that a by-election be held within 90 days of the resignation or death of a member of parliament. Maybe he should have introduced a motion requiring members of parliament to vote with the province instead of their party. Or maybe Hearn could have passed a motion that would prevent an MP from voting for a bill so he could vote against it.

Or maybe he should have tried an anti-hypocrisy motion to prevent a member of parliament from lambasting an opponent and then crying foul when the same populist e-mail storm hits his own e-mail in-basket.

There's still the mystery of the dot com site though. While I search, enjoy the sojourn over at Norm Doyle's tiny piece of cyberspace.

Norm Doyle's website is a mere blue page with a link to his e-mail address. The high-spending Doyle must be too busy to get his website up and inform voters of his views - like trying to end equal marriage.

I just can't wait to hear what else Norm wants to do.

Bring back the noose, maybe?

How about public flogging?

Take back the vote from women?

Meanwhile...

Seems that loyolahearn.com is registered to something called Canada Christian College, with the contact name on the account belonging to the college's president Dr. Charles McVety.

This is a bit wacky since there doesn't appear to be any logical reason why Charles McVety would own a website for Loyola Hearn.

McVety is the president of both Canada Christian College and the Christian Family Action Coalition. He's also involved with a number of similar political action groups like defendMarriage.

There is no indication of any direct connection between Hearn and McVety or any of the groups McVety heads. There's no sign the two even know each other.

Perhaps this site might explain it, although I still find the whole thing curious.

Seems that McVety has been cybersquatting - buying up the domains for members of parliament. Some of the sites have been activated, but for what purpose no one can say. Go to the sites named for Gerald Keddy or Don Boudria. They are almost identical.

My guess? McVety bought loyolahearn.com when hearn may have appeared to be waivering in his voting record on issues of concern to McVety. Doyle on the other hand had a perfect record and therefore wouldn't need to be pressured in cyberspace. Check Bouquets of Grey for just such ascorecardd" approach to rating members ofparliamentt.

I don't make this stuff up. I just put a bunch of stuff together and tell you what it looks like. There's no secret that conservative Christians on the extreme right have been working to influence Conservative Party policy and have staged minor coups in winning some nominations.

Consider this view, for example, taken from the Canadian Christianity website's OttawaWatch:

"And there are others who are known to competently understand and articulate the evangelical mindset, particularly with respect to life and family values. They include John Reynolds, Peter MacKay, Scott Reid, Loyola Hearn and James Moore."

This is going to take some extra digging.

In the meantime, I still haven't come up with a sensible reason why the head of a fundamentalist political action group would be owning a web domain named for a Conservative member of parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador?

More to follow, for sure.

So what's the point?

So Decima is producing polling results for Canadian Press.

What's the point if no one but Canadian Press can see the details?

Notice that in the story carried online in the Globe on Sunday, there isn't a single mention of the methodology used to collect data. It's an "online" poll, but beyond that we know exactly squat.

Geez, at least with Allan Gregg's outfit, I can tell he is just producing some numbers for his own purposes - like lumping Alberta, where the Connies are miles ahead, with Saskatchewan and Manitoba where they aren't. Then there's the absence of any numbers for British Columbia where there seems to be a race and the Atlantic provinces.

Allan once missed a major development in Atlantic Canada and blew off the error of his predictions with a shrug and a simple "Sample was too small."

Speaking of lame-assed

The Conservative party candidate in the Bonavista-Exploits riding is one Aaron Hynes.

He's an ex-navy type, with a bachelor of Arts degree from an unnamed university. Since leaving the navy, Aaron has worked extensively - as a staffer for Conservative members of parliament.

Now when a party has to start tossing political staffers into the fray, they are usually running low on alternatives. There's nothing wrong with staffers as candidates, but for the most part, most of them don't aspire to holding elected office.

If Aaron genuinely wants to enter elected politics on his own, then by all means, bring it on and good luck, Aaron.

And make no mistake, Aaron has a fine background - at least the navy bit. He deserves a medal for surviving as a political staffer for any party since the late 1990s.

What's lame-assed in this instance is the website. The thing is slow to load, is way too wide for most browsers and seem to have used just about every stock Conservative Party of Canada graphic and animation.

It looks exactly like every other CPC website except this one. That's the original CPC, the Communist Party of Canada.

Meanwhile, Loyola Hearn's site is still deader than a doornail. That's his dot com site; loyolahearn.ca doesn't even exist.

Compare that to his Liberal rival, Siobhan Coady. You can get there by .COM or .CA.

or for that matter, go visit Peg Norman, the New Democrat candidate who has reportedly stopped banging her head against the wall in the wake of Jack Layton's comments that people shouldn't vote for third place candidates.

Note that Peg's site is a cookie-cutter affair as well. Programmed nationally and with virtually no detectable local content.

The Fabester goes federal

Courtesy of Greg Locke is a picture for the history books.

It was taken on Sunday 04 December 05 in Holyrood as Fabian Manning announced his candidacy for the Conservatives in the Avalon riding.

Back to the camera is provincial finance minister Loyola "Rain Man" Sullivan, Fabe's mentor, as it were. Thankfully Fabe never picked up Rain Man's annoying tendency to cite statistics, numbers and decimals with a fetishistic fervour worthy of the most kinky accountant around.

Given the polls, Manning is likely to be out of work in the New Year, but hey, he is taking a shot.

One of the historic things about this whole change of direction for Fabe is that running for the federal Conservatives was one of the things Danny Williams cited in his heavy-handed effort to boot Fabe from the provincial Tory caucus. That's heavy handed as in having one of his political staffers sit in on the meeting - unheard of in other caucuses - to make sure the sheep elected members of the House of Assembly did as they were told.

The problem was the Premier got the wrong Manning at the time. Fabe's mistake at the time was not only challenging the Premier on his crab fishery management scheme but calling a local radio station to point out that the Premier had made a major league mistake about Fabe and his federal impulses.

Ya just don't do that to He Who Is Never Wrong.

The other historic thing about this shot is that it includes Elizabeth Marshall. She was Williams' star candidate in 2003 but fell from grace rather quickly as she had the temerity to disagree with the Premier.

Repeatedly.

She resented his making decisions within her department just because he could.

Repeatedly.

She finally got fed up and handed Danny her resignation.

He reportedly jumped for joy.

How quickly the stars fade.

Anyway, here's a picture of two former provincial Progressive Conservative stars who fell afoul of Danny Williams and paid the price for it.

One of them is looking to take up a new job.

Let's see what happens.

No contest in the TV spots

Check out the Conservatives' first TV spots - a series of three 30 sec spots built around the fake concept.

Here's Steve appearing to be interviewed by someone who is obviously not a real TV presenter. There's a screen in the background on which people who appear obviously to be actors are reading obviously scripted bits in an obviously 'I am reading a cue card or teleprompter' kinda way.

The people are referred to by first names, like "Joan", so we get the impression really quickly that these are generic Canadians. They are not real - even though there are obviously a few million real people across the country who would have been prepared to participate in some Conservative Party advertising.

Then Steve recites a bit of dialogue in a obviously stilted way. Aside from the obviously stiff approach and the obviously fake nature to the spots, the messaging is pretty heavy handed, as in crudely executed.

Then there are the first Liberals spots.

A soft approach featuring real people, with real names in real places across Canada telling you why they are voting Liberal. Since I had a small part in identifying people to participate, I can tell you they are real.

Then there's another one with a series of headlines praising Liberal policies over the past couple of years.

There's a big gap here in the quality and the execution of these TV spots on just about every level, from creative on down through the list. To be fair, the Conservative spots match their first week of campaigning in tone and message, but - and this is a big but - there is a sophisticated way to run political advertising that the Conservatives have just missed. They missed it in the flight they ran in August as well.

If the context and appearance - the look and feel - of the advertising lacks credibility, then the message will lack credibility as well.

But just so that everyone understand what the standards are for this type of advertising, try surfing through this site, The Living Room Candidate. I dare you to find a recent political television ad as lame-assed as these Conservative ones.

SES rolls on; PM and Harper move to Atlantic Canada

Another day, a new set of rolling polls from SES Research.

The Day 6 numbers, updated to 03 December 05, show the Liberals with 38%, the Conservatives with 29% and New Democrats at 15%. All changes are within the margin of error for the poll, but there seems to be an upward trending for Liberals and a flat line trending for Conservatives.

in the SES Leadership Index, there is also a significant change, but again, the fluctuations of the index components are within the margin of error.

Bottom line: Paul Martin still scores significantly higher than Steve Harper on the cumulative leadership scores.

The campaign shifts to Newfoundland on Monday and Tuesday. Paul Martin will address the St.John's Board of Trade on Monday. Stephen Harper is in St. John's on Tuesday, reportedly. Both leaders are obviously looking at the battleground in the three easternmost ridings in the country.

Two of the seats were held by the Conservatives after the last election but by the slimmest margin that I can recall for those seats, the ones Connie faithfuls were touting as "safe". The Liberals are looking for gains in those seats, hence the PM's visit.

Meanwhile, in the Avalon riding, former provincial member of the legislature Fabian Manning has bowed to the almost unprecedented pressure and will carry the Conservative banner. The seat was held by John Efford after the 2004 election. He'll be supported by Jim Morgan, among others. Morgan is a former provincial fisheries minister with more baggage from his past than new ideas.

Some reports have Stephen Harper in St. John's this week - most likely Tuesday. His goal will be to shore up the Avalon peninsula contests, particularly in the wake of polling that shows Newfoundlanders and Labradorians would return Liberals to Ottawa in the province's seven Commons ridings, if the vote was held today.