Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 22, 2004, Winnipeg, Manitoba A14 Winnipeg free press tuesday june 22, 2004 Freedom of Trade comment editor Terence Moore 697-7044 Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorials nip hand weakens l eader Jack Layton a abandonment yesterday of the new democratic party a inheritance tax proposal will Cost the party dearly in credibility among voters because it suggests the party is not serious about its program. Or. Layton May however be aware of extremely bad tidings about the level of Public support for the party so that he had to make such a risky move seven Days before polling Day. The nip program includes increased taxes on Small business increased taxation of capital gains and a new inheritance tax on estates Over $1 million in order to finance the party a ambitious plans to increase spending on health care infrastructure Public housing and environmental programs. The inheritance tax was controversial from the Start because plenty of wage earning families in Canadas largest cities have a House a cottage and other assets that bring them close to or. Layton a $1-million threshold. Or. Layton told the Canadian press news Agency yesterday that the nip was alone in asking for an inheritance tax. I would be surprised if it came Forward As one of the Bottom line considerations one of the must Dos. If its a parliament where we Don to have a majority you re going to have to have give and take. That a what you would at the same time Peter Stoffer the nip candidate in Sackville Eastern Shore n.s., was telling a reporter that he did not support the inheritance tax proposal. By tagging it As a disposable idea or. Layton in effect scratched it off the party a program. The sacrifice of the inheritance tax plan will annoy hard Core party supporters who thought it was a Good idea and it will Puzzle voters who thought the party had carefully thought through its program before publishing it. It leaves the program $3.5 billion a year Short of Revenue needing either a deficit of that size a tax increase of another kind or Matching cuts in proposed spending. That much damage to the party a electoral Appeal could Only be justified if or. Layton and his chief advisers feel the election slipping away from them and Are desperate to remove an irritant. If canadians elect a parliament of minorities on june 28, a Good Deal of bargaining along these lines May unfold. Prime minister Paul Martin has already publicly told or. Layton he would be willing to discuss the nip ideas about proportional representation in Canadian elections. Through some such process of negotiation or. Martin and conservative Leader Stephen Harper will both have to try to come up with a government and a program that will be supported by a majority in parliament. Ordinarily this bargaining would happen after the votes Are counted when the parties know where they stand in parliament and How a majority can be assembled. In trading away part of his program before the election or. Layton appears to be Deal ing from weakness. Success Story master Cpl. Georgie Cheesman carried a 35?pound Backpack and finished the Manitoba Marathon in four hours 15 minutes and 59 seconds. That was two minutes and 40 seconds ahead of Tara Zukewich who hobbled across the finish line on her Knees the crowds at the University of Manitoba stadium roaring their encouragement. Both Are stories of singular achievement one Topping up the Evi Dent Challenge involved in running 26 Miles the other because she ran hard and Strong about half the 869 marathoners finished behind is Zukewich a time of 4 15 59 and until her legs literally gave out. These tales of True grit Spring from a Community event that a a truly remarkable Success itself Annu ally attracting thousands of supremely Ordinary people runners and volunteers both. This is not to detract from the achievements of the winners. Brand onite Dane Samuel 37, won the full Marathon with a time of 2 31 27, a Little More than 10 minutes behind the five fit and fresh Mem Bers of the University of Manitoba a Cross country team who won the relay event. Women a Marathon Winner Harmony Holland 33, of Florida was like so Many contenders within a sprinting distance of glory having come close last year she returned to try again. Sadly her win was not celebrated As she crossed the line. Three women registered for the full Marathon actually ran the half Marathon course and finished ahead of her their electronic tracking chips created confusion when they registered their unbelievably Good times for the full 26 Miles Chris Glowach 45, finished his 22nd Marathon in 14th spot Overall. An achievement All the More remark Able for the fact he is now legally Blind. Yet the Manitoba marathons real feat 26 years into its run is its allure. It Drew a record 11,363 racers this year. Other marathons require runners to hit a qualifying time to enter. This run begun As a fundraising Effort for people with mental disabilities asks Only that students schools families friends those battling their weight show up and run raising Money for people with mental disabilities. Organizers Are said to be mulling Over a move to Start and end the race course downtown at Winnipeg a new Arena. Its an attractive idea ? thou Sands of people milling about downtown on fathers Day sunday next year. This May be a new chapter in the history of the Manitoba Marathon which has shown no sign of exhausting its allure for extraordinarily Ordinary people. Are liberals dead or undead on sunday night Csc parliamentary Bureau chief Keith Boag was telling the nation or rather the 10 per cent of the nation that watches Csc on the dime paid by 100 per cent of canadians that the liberals could pull this election out of the fire this week. Or. Boag based this projection on a rolling poll conducted by ses Canada research inc., a 15-year-old Public opinion firm that jumped into election polling for the first time this year in order to raise its National profile. Ses has carved out a Niche by polling every night and posting every Day changes in the trends of the election As opposed to the snap shots that others poll sters specialize in taking. Or. Boag noted that the trend going into the weekend showed Liber als pulling ahead of the conservatives for the first time in Ages. He thought that this might have been the result of a spate of what is called bad news for the conservatives late last week and the launch of yet another Batch of Liberal attack ads Over the weekend. The upshot he said was that it could be the Start of a Stampede Back to the safety and com fort of the Liberal fold. And it could have been that. But it want. Even As or. Boag was talking up the possibility ses was in the Field As usual. When it released its findings yesterday the trend had reversed again. The Liberal Lead had slipped Back to a dead heat with both the conservatives and liberals trending at 33 per cent support. Now it has seemed to me throughout the Campaign that both the Csc and the Globe and mail have shall we say erred on the Side of caution when it comes to reporting on the col lapse of Liberal support and the desperate tac tics that have resulted and there does seem to be excessive attention paid to finding a hidden Agenda in every utterance of any conserva Tive Ever. But i Don to especially fault or. Boag or the Globe because with less than a week to go i share the irrational belief that the liberals like the undead of countless horror movies ? the Freddy krugers perhaps or jasons and chuckles ? will come Back from the dead and it is irrational something that could Only happen in the movies that the liberals will come Back. Other than the ses Blip that reversed itself on the weekend there is not a single positive indicator for the liberals. At the moment. Since the Start of the election Liberal sup port has fallen eight Points to 33 per cent while conservative support has climbed five Points to 33 per cent. Since the Start of the election the appetite for change has climbed six Points to 58 per cent from 52 per cent. Since the Start of the election prime minis Ter Paul Martins Best prime minister rating has fallen three Points to 28 per cent while Stephen harpers has climbed seven Points to 24 per cent. From the Start of the election projections of Liberal seat totals have fallen 34 seats from a High of 129 to 95 yesterday while the conservative projection has climbed 19 seats from a Low of 107 to 126 yesterday. In Ontario where the main Battle is taking place the Liberal seat projection has fallen from 100 seats last election to 55 at the Start of this Campaign to 42 As of yesterday while the conservative projection has grown from two last election to a Low of 40 at the Start of the Campaign to 54 As of yesterday. The nip meanwhile was projected yesterday to win 10 seats in Ontario on june 28. In addition pollsters find that supporters of conservatives and new democrats Are More energized than liberals which Means they Are More Likely to get out and vote monday. Where in these thunderhead is the Silver lining nowhere. What All this amounts to is that the liberals had already lost the election within Days of calling it. And yet and yet. I called Barry Kay the professor of politics at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo who made the above seat projections for can West news service based on pooled results of polls. Prof. Kay sad that the Best Blue sky Hope for the liberals is that somehow with the nip they together pick up enough seats to create a virtually impossible he said the apparent unwillingness of the Media to accept the liberals Are Toast is an understandable unwillingness to accept that the end of the Story has been written. Its in the Media a interest that the election is not Over he said. The natural inclination is to continue to make it a horse so i called the Media ? newspaper editors in Hamilton London and Peterborough to see whether they agreed. And what did i find in Hamilton the editor said the liberals Are going Down in in London the editor said it was too close to Call. In Peterborough the editor said i Don to know if this is Wishful thinking but in the end people might Start looking to the liberals.?. shadowy role in the new Iraq by Nancy e. Soderberg special to the Washington Post with the Transfer of iraqi sovereignty less than two weeks away there is still much con fusion Over exactly what role the United nations will play there come july 1. Any mis understanding comes from the Way the Bush administration has oscillated since Well before the War Between calling the United nations irrelevant and practically begging it to come to the Rescue in Iraq. The United nations has been very Clear about what it can do basically it will continue what its been doing since president Bush personally asked in Secretary general Kofi Annan for help in breaking the political impasse there last february ? advising and assisting iraqis in forming a representative Perelli and by the group led by Paul Volcker that is investigating corruption in the Oil for food program. The United nations remains cautious and rightly so Given the continued violence on the ground the insurgents make no distinction among foreigners they seek to kill. Annan a reluctance is unlikely to change on the timetable Washington wants that is by june 30. That puts the 2005 elections ? which Are key to the . Exit strategy ? at risk if Washington fails to get the Security situation under control. Why is the United nations so reluctant to take up its new role it is hard to overestimate the effect on the . Community of the deaths last August of its special envoy to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello and two dozen of the organization a most talented staff. Pictures of de Mello and his fallen colleagues conditions do not yet exist for the International body to perform the tasks requested of it. Annan will appoint a special representative to assume Brahimi a political role but that official and his staff will Likely be based not in Bagh dad but in nearby Jordan. The Secretary Gen eral is concerned that the illegitimacy iraqis impute to the United states will rub off on the United nations if it returns to Iraq too soon. The United nations will be front and Centre in the critical Effort to organize the 2005 elections. In officials jaws dropped when presi Dent Bush repeatedly referred to Perelli director of the hitherto obscure electoral assistance division by name. The fact that he knows her name underscores just How much Washington is depending on those elections. A top unofficial recently told me he believes the Bush administration has never understood that the United nations derives ;