By Hedy Korbee
If Scarborough Southwest New Democrat MP Dan Harris is worried about running against Liberal star candidate Bill Blair in the upcoming federal election he’s not showing it.
Harris opened his campaign headquarters in a Cliffside storefront on Sunday with a speech that barely mentioned Blair and didn’t even touch on the former police chief’s perceived weak spots – Toronto’s carding policy and mass arrests at the G20 summit in 2010.
Instead, Harris set his sights on the government of Stephen Harper and put a local spin on the national NDP platform that public opinion polls indicate is resonating with Canadians.
Harris said when he was growing up in Scarborough Southwest most people considered themselves middle class but that feeling of comfort has been eroded by 20 years of Conservative and Liberal governments.
He blamed economic policies such as NAFTA for the closing of the Scarborough van plant and the loss of 2,800 jobs and then pointed to what’s taken its place in the riding as an example of what’s gone wrong with the economy.
“The Golden Mile along Eglinton, where you just saw industry after industry pack up and that’s been replaced by low wage, precarious, part-time, largely retail work. And that’s the reality facing over half of the people in Toronto now – low wage, precarious work without any benefits without any pensions, without any support,” said Harris.
In order to support average Canadians, Harris said an NDP government would introduce a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour, implement a $15-a-day childcare program and contribute one cent of the federal gas tax to cities so they can improve services such as transit and community housing.
Harris’ NDP roots
Harris was speaking to a small but enthusiastic crowd who snacked on “ice-cold camembert and broken crackers” in a room filled with NDP memorabilia going back to the days when former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis represented the area for 15 years.
He reminded them that he joined the local riding association in 1995, the day after Mike Harris was elected Premier of Ontario, slapping down $5 at the age of 15 to “stand up and be counted among the people who opposed the policies of those Conservatives.”
Harris made his first run for office in 2000 and was a perennial candidate for the NDP, federally and municipally, contesting five elections until he finally beat Liberal Michelle Simson in 2011.
Polling in Scarborough Southwest
The Harris victory in 2011 caught many people by surprise.
As the national Liberal vote collapsed, Harris rode the orange wave under Jack Layton and took a seat the Liberals had held for 22 years.
Scarborough Southwest is a must win riding for both the NDP and Liberals if either party wants to beat the Harper Conservatives.
Tom Mulcair’s NDP need to hang on this riding and win ridings where they finished in second place last time.
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals must win back this riding and all the traditional Liberal ridings they lost last time to both the NDP and the Conservatives.
So, for the first time in decades, Scarborough Southwest will be in the national media spotlight during the October election.
It looks right now to be too close to call.
If you drill down into the numbers on the respected website ThreeHundredEight.com, a polling aggregator, it calculates that if an election were held right now, 36.1% of voters would choose Harris, compared to 33.9% for Blair – a difference of just 2.2%.
That very close margin means there is only a 56% chance that this prediction would turn out to be correct.
A poll conducted by Forum Research back in February, however, showed Blair would defeat Harris with 39% of respondents saying they would vote for Blair if an election were held at that time, compared to 29% for Harris. 27% said they would vote for a Conservative candidate.
But, at this point in time, the Conservatives have not even entered the election fight here in Southwest Scarborough. They have not nominated a candidate and attempts by Birch Cliff News to contact the riding association have not been successful.
NDP raised $5,000 in five minutes
At the Harris campaign launch the NDP’s readiness to fight was written on the walls.
The activists on hand quickly raised $5,000 in just five minutes through nothing more than a show of hands.
Harris’ only mention of Bill Blair came at the very end of his speech when he briefly talked about the fact that Blair is a star candidate who entered the race just two months ago
“Folks in Scarborough don’t like being dropped in on,” Harris said. “It amazes me. Eight candidates were running for that nomination, eight local people, who while we might disagree on issues these are folks from the community who care. And then Bill jumps in and the next day there’s photos with the leader. And then the leader has the gall to say “I’m not playing favourites’.
“Time to get moving and kick some butt,” Harris said.
