BRACEBRIDGE, Ont. – Conservative candidate Tony Clement must have been wondering about the wisdom of inviting a reporter to tag along on some early Saturday evening door-to-door canvassing.
The first two houses were hostile, one because of his cabinet minister role in the former provincial government of Mike Harris, another because they did not trust Conservative leader Stephen Harper.
The next few were either wary or at best noncommittal.
“Tough street,” muttered the veteran campaigner and former Conservative Party leadership candidate now trying to defeat agriculture minister Andy Mitchell.
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Then Clement crossed the street and discovered that at least for a Conservative, the other side was sunnier.
By the end, at least five people wanted lawn signs and others had promised a Conservative vote.
“Great street,” Clement said later. “We lost Bracebridge by 1,000 votes last time. This looks encouraging.”
A half hour drive north, Mitchell was moving between a Habitat for Humanity house opening and a Christmas gift sale at a seniors’ residence in Huntsville.
“All the elections I’ve been in here have been competitive,” the four-term MP said in a Dec. 4 interview between campaign events.
“But after 12 years of being their MP and being a minister for the last while, most folks know me by name and that’s important in a riding like this. It is amazing how many people watch Question Period on television.”
This riding, with its deep Conservative historical roots and a well-known Conservative opponent, will be a tough fight for Mitchell, a banker who moved to the area as a branch manager and a few years later was the first Liberal elected in decades during the 1993 Ontario Liberal sweep.
In 2004, against a weaker Conservative candidate, Mitchell’s victory margin was trimmed to just over 3,000 votes.
Still, he has survived strong challengers before. In 1997, the Conservatives’ attempt to reclaim the riding by running retired general Lewis Mackenzie was turned back by Mitchell.
Throughout the 1990s, Parry Sound-Muskoka was one of the ridings in which the Reform-Progressive Conservative split helped the Liberals.
The first thing to understand about the riding represented by the federal agriculture minister is that agriculture will not be part of the local debate. There are few farmers in the sprawling riding in Ontario cottage country sustained mainly by tourism in the south and forestry in the north.
Mitchell said the issues will be local and national – health-care, the gun registry, jobs, the economy, northern development and rural issues.
“We are a rural riding and those issues will be very much part of the conversation,” said the minister who has responsibility for rural issues, as well as Northern Ontario development policies. “I think people see my involvement on these issues and see it as fulfiling the mandate that comes from the riding.”
He plans to take a break from campaigning to attend World Trade Organization negotiations in Hong Kong Dec. 13-18.
“It is not good to be out of the riding during a campaign, but as a minister I have national responsibilities and I believe I have to be there to represent Canadian producers,” said Mitchell.
“I’ll just have to work that much harder when I’m here.”
Clement doubts the minister’s absence will have much impact because “it is in that pre-Christmas period.”
He said the real danger for Mitchell is that the riding has been gradually returning to its conservative roots that saw Progressive Conservative Stan Darling elected for 25 years before his retirement in 1993.
“The overriding issue is honesty in government, but it is also true that this riding is fundamentally conservative in values and people are realizing the Liberals do not reflect those values,” said the Conservative candidate. He noted that Mitchell had voted for the government’s expensive gun registry despite much local opposition.
The election also is important for Clement’s political future.
He has been on a two-year losing streak, losing his provincial seat in a 2003 election despite a high profile as health minister during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak, running a poor third in the Conservative Party leadership race in 2004 and then losing as a Conservative candidate 17 months ago.
