Crowd displeaser

Harper's drug strategy was the big election news today...but surely it has to be a bad sign that it fell flat when presented to those most affected by drugs:

On Saturday, Harper met with local residents at the Burnaby recreation centre and heard some of their horrifying experiences with drugs.

Lori, a recovering crystal meth addict who does not want her last name used, said she doesn't vote and was contacted by his staff to attend the event.

But she wasn't very positive on Harper's plan...

Lori hadn't been shown the details of Harper's drug crime platform and wondered if it contained anything about recovery programs. It did not.

"If it's not in there, that's really going to make me angry," she said, after offering her advice and sharing her story with Harper's team.

"I'd really like to know why he'd not say anything."

The Con response was to claim that recovery funding will be dealt with later...which sounds like a useful way of claiming to be interested in the issue to try to save some face. But surely it speaks volumes that the Cons not only didn't give the issue a single thought in planning out their drug strategy, but also wrongly assumed that sentencing alone would make the platform a popular one with the people with the best knowledge of the problem.

For all his raised profile this week, Harper has succeeded in doing nothing more than proving that he's a master at unveiling policies which people don't support. And that plays nicely into the "not scary, just wrong" line of attack from Layton...while making Martin look silly for considering Harper a serious threat to anything.