Tories Widen Lead On Liberals

What Stephane Dion and the Liberals may have seen as a heaven-sent opportunity to knock the Tories off-stride has apparently not connected with voters. "Mr. Dion hasn't been able to create a political opportunity," Anderson said. "The Conservatives weren't getting much forward momentum from a pretty popular throne speech and pretty popular tax cuts that they announced. "I think what we're really seeing this week is that the efforts of the opposition parties to really kind of reset the agenda away from those initiatives and on the Mulroney-Schreiber hasn't really taken." Anderson said the poll found that Canadians aren't convinced that the Harper Conservatives are the same as the Mulroney Conservatives, and voters don't connect Harper with the scandal. Harper has told his cabinet ministers and MPs, many of whom served under Mulroney, not to have any dealings with the former prime minister. Many Conservative MPs, several of whom were quick to embrace Mulroney and his legacy as they sought to make inroads in Quebec, have gone to pains recently to draw a sharp distinction between the former prime minister's Conservative party and Harper's Tory government. Harper's decision to call a public inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair has also helped him with voters, Anderson said. Harper asked University of Waterloo president David Johnston to set the terms of reference for the inquiry shortly before the survey was conducted. The terms are to be revealed by Jan. 11. The focus of the inquiry will include financial dealings that took place between 1993 and 1994, when former prime minister Brian Mulroney accepted $300,000 in cash from Schreiber. The poll also suggests the Tories are neck and neck with the Bloc in Quebec. ... http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=n1120126A

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