Toronto Centre offers an interesting preview of what each party’s plans are for the next federal election. This is more true of the Conservatives than anyone else because, as we now know thanks to the firing of the previous Conservative candidate Mark Warner, they are running a “cookie cutter” campaign that is to be deployed identically into every riding across the country. One particular aspect of this campaign is a series of flyers that portray all issues as being black and white—or, rather, red and blue—with the Conservatives on one side and the Liberals on another. They are extremely simplistic, and feed my previously stated theory that Stephen Harper thinks you’re stupid. For example, their flyer on taxes simply says “higher / lower” (applied to the Liberals and Conservatives respectively), and their flyer on crime simply says “tough / soft.”

Watch the following video, recorded during last Thursday’s debate at Rosedale United Church, to see how that’s working out for them. This is Bob Rae at his best, Don Meredith close to his worst, and me somewhere in the middle.

Further, here’s my opening statement from the same debate.