HARPER DEFENDS INSITE OPPOSITION

RICHMOND, B.C. -- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper found himself
once again defending his government's controversial efforts to end
supervised street-drug injections at the Insite facility during a
campaign stop in Richmond yesterday. He said the Tories remain dead
set against something they consider promoting drug use.

"When it comes to drug use, we want to make sure that we expend our
resources on treatment and prevention, which we believe are the more
appropriate vehicles," Mr. Harper said.

Proponents of Insite have expressed anger this week that the RCMP has
commissioned research that offers contrary views of the facility's
effectiveness.

Mr. Harper was stumping in Richmond for Tory candidate Alice Wong, who
is trying to unseat Liberal incumbent Raymond Chan.

It was Mr. Harper's second consecutive day in B.C., where the Tories
hope to steal as many as five or six seats from the Liberals,
including Richmond.

Separately, the Conservative Leader altered the strategy of his attack
on Liberal Leader Stephane Dion yesterday, referring to him several
times as "Prime Minister Dion" in what appears to be an effort, given
sliding Tory support in polls, to force voters to second-guess their
decision to switch to the Liberals.

It's not certain whether Mr. Harper has ever referred to his Liberal
rival this way before.

He suggested once again that Mr. Dion's proposed carbon tax would
wreak economic havoc, but neglected to mention the offsetting tax cuts
the Liberals also promise to deliver.

"This is a close election that can go any way," he
said.

"There will be two outcomes. ... There will either be Prime Minister
[Stephane] Dion, who will tackle our economic problems by increasing
spending that we can't afford and increasing taxes to pay for it. Or
our government, which will keep spending under control and keep taxes
going down," Mr. Harper said.

"Do Canadians want at a time of economic trouble to take economic
policies which common sense tells us will drive us into recession,
cost jobs, raise interest rates and make everybody's life more difficult?"

Mr. Harper, who has spent much time in this campaign warning Canadians
about risks in the economy, is now trying to reassure Canadians in the
wake of stock-market turmoil that's unsettled the country.

He urged Canadians to weigh their vote carefully over the Thanksgiving
turkey this holiday weekend, saying his Liberal rival's refusal to
delay a carbon-tax pledge as the economic gloom deepens should rule
out electing him.

The Conservatives' lead over Mr. Dion's party has shrunk in the polls
amid charges from his rivals that Mr. Harper has stood pat as the
economy faltered and stocks plunged.

"[Mr. Dion] has been asked repeatedly, as he was in Toronto yesterday,
if he will delay his carbon tax, given the current state of the
world's economy," Mr. Harper told a Richmond rally yesterday.

"He says he will not, regardless of financial markets, regardless of
the effect on jobs, regardless of the effect on savings," the
Conservative Leader said.

"The carbon tax is the wrong policy at the wrong time."

As always, Mr. Harper neglected to mention that the Liberals are also
proposing roughly $15-billion in income-tax breaks to rebate the
entire proceeds from the carbon tax back to Canadians.