The increasingly bitter tone of the Ontario campaign took a surreal turn Friday when a press release from the Tory election machine labelled Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty a pet-eating alien.
The bizarre insult, contained in a statement e-mailed to media representatives shortly before lunchtime, immediately deflected attention from the health-care agenda that the Conservatives had hoped to pitch Friday.
"Dalton McGuinty," the statement said. "He's an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet."
Conservative Leader Ernie Eves blamed the release on a staffer who apparently "had too much coffee this morning ... too much time."
Ontario Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty addresses a breakfast meeting at a Kingston hotel on Friday. (Michael Lea/CP)
But he refused to retract the statement.
"I'm not apologizing, but I am acknowledging that it certainly went over the top," he said. "Somebody had a weird sense of humour and we will try to ensure that it doesn't happen again. We'll give the [staff] less coffee."
Mr. McGuinty smiled broadly when asked to confirm or deny that he eats small pets and comes from outer space.
"I love kittens, and I like puppies too," he said.
But the Liberal leader refused to return the attack. "I'm not going to get sidetracked by that stuff," he said.
The Tories have gone negative in two of their first three television advertisements, directly attacking Mr. McGuinty and accusing him of being incapable of leadership. Mr. McGuinty's ads have taken a softer line, strategists insisting that the campaign can be won without slinging mud at opponents, though they have reportedly hammered out plans for attack ads if their numbers begin to slide dramatically.
Well below the public level of the television ads, though, the campaign has been characterized by a string of often insulting press releases issued daily by the two leading parties. Earlier Friday reporters were told by the Tories that "like a boy who goes to the doctor every time he skins his knee, Dalton McGuinty thinks that health care is free."
The Liberal deputy leader, Sandra Pupatello, put out her own statement around the same time, saying that "Ernie Eves is either incompetent and doesn't know his own platform, or he is purposely misleading Ontario voters. Those are the only two possible explanations."
Earlier this week the Tories said in a open note to Mr. McGuinty that "if you truly believe what you're saying, you need professional help." And the Liberals, in a regular feature called "Decoding Ernie Eves" that the campaign office puts together, once described the Conservative Leader as "Ernie 'off the top of my head I couldn't tell you' Eves" and closed with the sentence: "No wonder Ontario families don't trust Ernie Eves."
With reports from The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith in Woodstock and Gloria Galloway in Cornwall
Text of e-mail sent to reporters
Subject: Dear Mister McGuintyDear Mister McGuinty
An Occasional Bulletin from Ernie Eves Campaign Headquarters
September 12, 2003
There came a fork in "the high road." The Liberals took it.
"Ernie Eves is either incompetent and doesn't know his own platform, or he is purposely misleading Ontario voters."
-- Deputy Liberal Leader Sandra "Better Angels of our Nature" Pupatello, September 12, 2003
"The Eves government isn't just incompetent. It can actually put you in the hospital - or worse."
-- Hamilton Mountain Liberal MPP Marie "Is Everybody Happy?" Bountrogianni, September 11, 2003
"You can't trust Ernie Eves when it comes to nuclear safety."
-- St. Paul's Liberal MPP Michael "China Syndrome" Bryant, September 11, 2003
These jolly, positive, "Who-me-fear-monger?" pronouncements beg a simple question:
"Who really speaks for the Ontario Liberal Party?
Dalton McGuinty. He's an evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet. (sorry)
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