OTTAWA — Tom Mulcair is in Tory territory today to burnish the NDP's fiscal bona fides, while his Conservative rival returned the favour in a New Democrat riding with a promise to pave a key Northwest Territories highway.
Mulcair has introduced former Saskatchewan finance minister Andrew Thomson as the NDP's challenger to Conservative counterpart Joe Oliver in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence.
And he is also promising to make the parliamentary budget officer an independent officer of Parliament to eliminate the possibility of political interference.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Hay River, N.W.T. with a $14-million pledge to pave a stretch of a scenic highway that links Fort Smith to Hay River through Wood Buffalo National Park.
Normally such a project would get a third of its cost from the federal government, with the territorial government and local communities splitting the rest. Harper, however, offered to cover the whole thing, saying small northern communities could take years to raise the needed money.
Harper has made the North a focus, travelling the region each summer, promoting development and infrastructure projects.
Despite his distance from Ottawa, the prime minister couldn't escape questions about the Mike Duffy corruption trial. He stuck to his stock answers, however, saying Duffy and Nigel Wright, Harper's former chief of staff, are responsible.
The prime minister also left the door open to Canada joining a North American ballistic missile defence shield, but only if national security was threatened.
"Our position is that we keep evaluating our options," he said.
Mulcair aimed to shore up his party's economic credentials by pitting Thomson against Oliver, but the showdown comes in a Toronto riding where the NDP has never been a contender.
Thomson made his name in as finance minister Saskatchewan in 2006-7. He cut taxes, balanced the budget and produced strong growth and a budget surplus.
He also engaged in skirmishes with Ottawa over resource revenues and their effects on the equalization system.
"Andrew has the experience and strong fiscal record that Canada needs to get the economy on track and create greater opportunity for the middle class," Mulcair said.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau took a down day from the campaign on Friday.
Green party Leader Elizabeth May travelled to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island where she promised a better deal for veterans.
She said she wants to reverse changes to veterans benefits and said any vet with post-traumatic stress disorder who wants a service dog should get one.
