Erin O’Toole is telling supporters to pound the pavement and get out the vote on his last day of campaigning, while he runs toward the finish line at more of a jog than a sprint.
The Conservative leader returned from a morning run at about 9:30 a.m., before boarding a bus to visit different campaigns in the Greater Toronto Area.
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O’Toole has campaigned in a style that is anything but normal, often trading face-to-face interactions with Canadians for a virtual format that relies on people picking up the phone and tuning into online townhalls.
It’s a strategy the party hopes delivers them new voters on Monday in an election where the Conservatives and Liberals have been locked in a tight race.
O’Toole’s first elbow-bumping session of the day took place in Oakville, Ont. before noon with Kerry Colborne. She is looking to unseat Liberal Anita Anand, who served as the minister in charge of Canada’s vaccine procurement effort.
O’Toole told the Oakville crowd it was their last chance to push out his election message, which focuses on a plan to recover the country from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Colborne then answered a question that her leader wouldn’t.
She says she’s double-vaccinated against COVID-19 and believes it’s important to be, but says she can’t speak for whether other candidates decide to say whether they are, too.
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Questions about the vaccination status of Conservative candidates have followed O’Toole throughout the campaign, in part because he’s the only major party leader to not require full immunization.
The stance reflects the party’s position to respect personal choice.
The Liberals have hammered on the issue in an effort to set themselves apart from the Conservatives.
The frequent Liberal broadsides have led O’Toole to say the party leader is dividing Canadians, while Justin Trudeau has countered by comparing O’Toole’s leadership to that of premiers in Western Canada, where COVID-19 cases have been spiking.
