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Sunday, May 23, 1999

Harris slams Grit flip-flop

McGuinty changes position 'from poll to poll'

By ANTONELLA ARTUSO -- Toronto Sun
 KENORA -- Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty is all over the map --and not just on his campaign bus, says Premier Mike Harris.

 "Dalton McGuinty has had so many different positions on so many different issues, from poll to poll, from week to week, almost day to day," Harris said yesterday. "(NDP Leader) Howard Hampton is consistently wrong."

 The premier dismissed suggestions yesterday that he's bought into the notion of strategic voting, directing anti-Tory voters to Hampton's third-place party where they can do the least harm.

 "I've never encouraged anybody to vote NDP, Liberal," he said. "There's only one strategy that makes any sense to me and that's voting for our blueprint."

 Harris' comments were made in Hampton's own backyard, the newly configured riding of Kenora-Rainy River, where the NDP leader is in a tough battle with Liberal opponent Frank Miclash.

 Harris said voters could count on some "predictability" from Hampton, but in his opinion, neither opposition party is offering the kind of leadership needed in Ontario.

 Harris said the Grits and the NDP -- especially in the northwestern part of the province -- have provided only an unrelenting barrage of criticism and little helpful input into northern issues.

 Both parties fought the Tories' Lands for Life process which worked out a compromise plan for the use of northern land called Living Legacy.

 Harris said this process has set aside far more land for environmental purposes than either of the two previous governments.

 John Snobelen, Tory candidate and minister of natural resources, said brokering the deal between industry and environmentalists wasn't easy. "I've got the bruises to prove it," he said.

 Harris was greeted in Kenora by a gaggle of protesters including teachers, home-care workers and native people who object to Lands for Life.

 Tories are also being legally challenged by northern outfitters who claim the Tory ban of the spring bear hunt has hurt them financially.

 But Harris was sticking to his guns yesterday, saying that the hunt is unethical and unnecessary.

 "We do more in the north than just hunt bears right after hibernation in the spring," Harris said.

 
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