The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Flin Flon Conservative MP candidate Bill Archer has accused incumbent MP Bev Desjarlais of fear-mongering after she suggested Canadians view his party as a group of extremists. Desjarlais, the NDP candidate, told The Reminder last week that there is a public "fear" of the Conservatives and that people "haven't forgotten that the Conservatives are really Reform/Alliance." "She's starting to sound like the Liberals," Archer said yesterday in response. "They've been trying fear-mongering from day one Ñ 'They're so scary.' Well, look at our platform. It's moderate and even-keeled. We call for, God forbid, increasing funding to health care. We call for reducing income tax for the middle bracket. Scary stuff." The Conservative candidate said some supporters of his party personally oppose contentious matters like abortion and same-sex marriage but added that those opinions exist in all parties. Desjarlais is against same-sex marriage, he said, remarking, "Does that make Bev scary? No, she's not scary." The Thompson lawyer said he views Desjarlais' statement as a sign that "maybe she's getting a little worried" about the election, now just 11 days away. Someone who isn't worried is Archer, who is pleasantly surprised at the amount of success Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has been having on the campaign trail. "To be frank, I thought there was an outside chance we could form the majority government, but I was thinking that the most likely scenario was we were looking at a Liberal minority," he said. "I'm thoroughly pleased with how our national campaign has been run and I think our local campaign has been going well, too." See 'Campaign' P.# Con't from P.# With a recent nationwide poll showing the Conservatives holding a one-point lead over the Liberals, Archer said his campaign has felt a boost from the shift of support toward the Right. "I think when this campaign started, I was considered a long shot or a no shot by many people. I'm not getting that now," he said. "I've run into long-term Liberal supporters who have indicated they're supporting me. I've run into NDP supporters who have said the same." The nosedive of the Liberals' fortunes may seem abrupt to many observers, but Archer disagrees with that notion. "It's a plunge that's been building for 11 years now," he said. "For the last 11 years, Canadians have not been given a real opportunity, a real choice. The Right was divided. When the billion-dollar [HRDC] boondoggle hit, the Liberals didn't drop in the polls that much. Why? Because there was no real alternative. Now Canadian people have an alternative." Archer expressed confidence that the Conservatives will form government on June 28 Ñ majority or minority Ñ and that he can break through the stranglehold the NDP have held on the Churchill Riding over the years.
