THE LONG ROAD TO ELECTION DAY

STEPHEN Harper took the Conservative campaign far to the North Monday
(before jetting back south to Thunder Bay) where two of his ideas clashed.

Harper's bid to solidify Canada's Arctic sovereignty is based on
growing the country's presence along its northern coast. Adding
military presence and planning to build a new fleet of thick-hulled
vessels are among his initial forays, designed to counter seabed
claims by other countries. Monday, Harper added a land value to his
claim by resurrecting Conservative icon John Diefenbaker's
50-year-old Dempster Highway dream.

Oil and gas exploration was booming in the Mackenzie Delta and in
1958 the Canadian government made the historic decision to build a
671-kilometre road through the Arctic from Dawson City, Yukon, to
Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. The discovery of oil in Yukon's
Eagle Plain followed by the Prudhoe Bay oil boom in Alaska spurred
the government to construction with uncharacteristic haste.

Renewed sovereignty concerns caused Harper to propose Monday to
extend the Dempster from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk. He was competing for
attention with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff who was not
coincidentally also in the region seeking his own shot at taking any
or all of its three seats that have swung among all three leading
federal parties over the years.

But instead of Liberal policy, Harper came up against another of his
own ideas when the one and only question allowed a local reporter --
as is his restrictive pattern at every stop -- was about funding for
a drug treatment centre for poor and addicted northerners.

Having already reiterated his proposal to shut down Vancouver's
supervised drug injection facility, Harper could not very well
approve of another drug treatment centre to the north. Instead, he
turned the question into a challenge to voters to elect Tory
candidate Sandy Lee, an ex-territorial health minister, saying that
she could then bring the plan to Ottawa for consideration.

(Ironically, that would defeat NDP incumbent Dennis Bevington, one of
the few New Democrats -- including Thunder Bay area's Bruce Hyer and
John Rafferty -- who eschewed party policy to support a Tory bill to
scrap the long-gun registry.)

Crime rates in the North are far higher than elsewhere in the country
and substance abuse is widespread. A close second is Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside where the drug injection site has just received
credibility in a prestigious Lancet article that says it has reduced
fatal overdoes by 35 per cent.

But a site that hands out drugs is anathema to Tory thinking, just as
building more prisons is favoured despite the American experience of failure.

Competing themes among Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats
appear to be taking hold among voters, but in spite of some slippage
this week, the Tories still hold a commanding eight-point lead in
polls over the Liberals while the NDP has climbed four points. With
13 days remaining before election day, time is short for all candidates.