I'm Not An NDP Supporter By Any Stretch BUT...

...Cathy Crowe has paid her dues and her efforts over the years in helping the less fortunate should be repaid by the voters.

NDP candidate sensing victory in Toronto-Centre

Or, will she have to eat Crowe in Thursday byelection?

By JONATHAN JENKINS, Queen’s Park Bureau

Cathy Crowe smells an upset in Toronto-Centre.
“I’m getting prepared for a win,” the New Democrat said of Thursday’s byelection to replace former deputy premier George Smitherman at Queen’s Park.
“It’s certainly a neck-and-neck race. It may surprise some of you but that’s what I’m hearing at the door.”
Smitherman held the downtown riding for a decade and built a formidable and well-funded machine for the governing Liberals before opting to run for Toronto mayor this fall.
Defending the seat for Dalton McGuinty’s party is former Winnipeg mayor and president of the Canadian Urban Institute Glen Murray.
Crowe, a street nurse and homeless advocate with a high profile in Toronto-Centre’s less affluent south, said she has found the riding has grown weary of the Liberal-Conservative dichotomy and wants something new in an elected representative.
“The overarching sentiment is that the Conservatives had a number of years and the Liberals then had six more,” she said. “(Voters) use the word change, they want change.”
Not surprisingly, Murray says he has seen none of the anger or concern over such issues as the impending Harmonized Sales Tax or the Salvation Army pulling out of running the Grace Health Centre, as the NDP say they have found.
“It’s the biggest red herring,” Murray said of worries about the Grace, which he said were whipped up by a “desperate NDP.”
“The whole thing was ridiculous, quite frankly.”
Murray said that people he talks to are more interested in the redevelopment of Regent Park, expansion at Ryerson University and what he said was an $85-million increase to St. Michael’s hospital budget.
“We’ve never seen this kind of investment and real people when you knock on real doors are feeling very good about that and are very excited,” Murray said, adding he expects his toughest competition to come from Progressive Conservative candidate Pamela Taylor.
“I think we’re going to win Thursday but I always run like I’m in second place. As long as you run like you’re in second place, you’re more likely to come out in first place.”