Posting London Free Press
Oct 4, 2007
OTTAWA -- Dalton McGuinty is insulting Ontarians by living inside a bubble, afraid to meet real people, John Tory charged yesterday.
"What is Dalton McGuinty afraid of?" Tory asked a breakfast gathering of Progressive Conservative supporters in Ottawa.
"Real people with real problems don't get inside his bubble," Tory said, campaigning on McGuinty's home turf.
On the rare occasion when the Liberal premier has encountered Ontarians such as a cancer patient in Ottawa, the Conservative leader said, he merely brushes by.
"You brush them off, you tell them off" is McGuinty's approach, a fired-up Tory told a crowd of about 60. "This is a shocking abdication of responsibility."
McGuinty, he recalled, rushed past a terminal cancer patient in Ottawa who was upset at a lack of funding for cancer drugs, saying, "That's not true." And the premier ignored a Kitchener mother who felt his government should fund religious schools.
"You don't see Dalton McGuinty talking to a lot of real voters out there," Tory said. "He is not exposing himself to real people."
The Conservative leader said McGuinty is afraid of confrontation in the campaign.
In Toronto, McGuinty denied he is operating in a bubble after speaking to an audience of 500 at the Empire Club of Canada.
"I look forward to speaking to as many more Ontarians as I possibly can between now and the end of the election," he said, with less than a week left until election day in a campaign that is highly structured and has seen little contact with the public.
Asked for examples of interaction with voters, the premier said he spoke to them at the International Plowing Match. And he cited the cancer patient in Ottawa.
Tory said he talks to voters on an almost daily basis and spent a night at Caledonia to understand the issues there.
Later, outside Ottawa Hospital, Tory reiterated his bubble boy charge.
"I believe an important part of leadership is listening . . . You can't let yourself get in a bubble. I never will be."
Tory spent much of his day in media interviews, including the first-ever meeting of a Conservative leader with the editorial board of the Le Droit newspaper. He's trying to rebuild relations with the francophone community, damaged when the former Conservative government of Mike Harris failed in a bid to close Ottawa's mainly francophone Montfort Hospital.