The Ontario Liberals did it so innocently. It was a minor announcement. There was little fanfare. Tim Hudak went for the bait and now he is floundering on the shore, ready for the mercy kill. The provincial Conservative leader broke the cardinal rule of political campaigns: make your plan and stick to it. He has been suckered.
Someone smarter than Tim would have been curious about the timing. A smarter person might have remembered that the announcement sounded very much like a plan put forward by the Conservatives in the Ontario Legislature last year. And, besides, in a campaign about billions in budgets to run this province, a $12 million plan to help a few new Canadians get the job experience they need, is really small potatoes.
But Tim bit. He is flailing out at the “foreigners” who are being helped with the hard-earned cash of real Canadians. What he does not realize is that the positive response he is getting is from his own voters. Tim is drinking his own bath water. He already has a lock on the bigot vote. Why waste time to go after it again?
When then Conservative Leader John Tory made his gaffe in the 2007 election in supporting faith-based schools, it was a different kind of mistake. Tory stepped out of the game plan and did something that was anathema to his voters. You conflict your voters at your peril.
By attacking “foreigners” as he is, Tim Hudak is narrowing his vote. The breakthrough that his federal party made earlier this year with the Toronto area ethnic communities was based on hard work in those communities. Tim blew that the first time he opened his mouth about the Liberal program. Who but newer Canadians understand the frustrations people feel when they cannot use the training they received in another country because of their lack of ease with the language. This program is a critical step needed to improve and upgrade our workforce. And they must be Canadians first.
Poor Tim has been had.
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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