Photo/DAN PELTON FEDERAL LIBERAL LEADER MICHAEL IGNATIEFF met some of the folks in Dufferin-Caledon riding Saturday while on a cross-country tour. He was attending the Strawberry Fields festival in Caledon with Dufferin-Caledon Liberal candidate Bill Prout. With talk that a federal election could happen next spring, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made Dufferin- Caledon a stop on his nationwide tour to rally the Grits and spread the Liberal message.

On Saturday, he spoke to party supporters in Barrie in the morning, before the bus took him to the Strawberry Fields festival in Caledon.

In an exclusive interview, Mr. Ignatieff spoke of the party’s rural policy and the direction of Canada’s manufacturing industry, as well as answering to Conservative attack ads that he’s “just visiting” and criticism regarding the number of years he spent outside the country.

“One of the reasons I’m on this tour to make Canadians see there’s someone who wants to do politics the right way,” he said, “politics that doesn’t attack you personally, politics that doesn’t attack your integrity and politics that doesn’t attack your patriotism.

“We want politics that says ‘we’ve got a country here and what can we do to make it better.’ If we go the other route, nobody’s going to show up to vote for anybody, let alone me.”

Mr. Ignatieff added that this doesn’t mean the Liberals will turn the other cheek should the Tories maintain their persistent attack ads.

“Let’s be real, here. If you take a shot at me, I’m going to defend myself. I’ll defend myself vigorously and I’ll defend the party vigorously.”

Andrew Kania, Liberal MP for Brampton West, who was among several MPs accompanying Mr. Ignatieff on this leg of the tour, concurred with his leader that the party should not engage in negative, attackstyle politics. Instead, the trip should be informative.

“I think most Canadians already know there is a problem with the Harper Conservative government. People are hungry for a change, but they also want to know what the Liberal Party would do if they put their trust in us and put us back into government.

“Part of this summer will be spent listening to Canadians county waste and getting their views, as well as letting them know what we are planning to do, if we get back into power.”

As for rural policy, The Liberals have unveiled a number of initiatives, such as a pledge to provide a $3,000 refundable tax credit to all volunteer firefighters with a mini- mum of 200 hours of volunteer service during the tax year.

“Thousands of Canadians put their lives at risk to keep us safe when they don the volunteer firefighter’s uniform,” said Dufferin-Caledon candidate Bill Prout, who accompanied Mr. Ignatieff in Barrie and in Caledon on Saturday. “Without the emergency public service provided by volunteer firefighters, residents of Dufferin and Caledon would be without protection; which is why we need to support their efforts.”

As part of the party platform, the Liberals aim to restore rural mail service through the modernization of rural post offices with high-speed Internet.

As well, Liberal Rural Caucus Chair MP Mark Eyking has introduced a bill in the House of Commons to create a Rural Canadian Postal Charter, which includes a moratorium on future closures of rural post offices and restoring the rural and roadside mail delivery that were in place as of September 1, 2005.

In the interview, Mr. Ignatieff outlined ways rural areas could have better access to high-speed Internet.

One way to begin would be a spectrum auction. A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific electromagnetic wavelengths.

Saying that the current government has had such auctions and put the money into general revenues, Mr. Ignatieff suggested a specific direction for the revenues. “Let’s take the revenue from spectrum auction sale and build our Internet service so it has 100 percent coverage; high speed, high quality Internet access.

“At least, let’s ensure they have access at the post offices, the public libraries and at the community centres. If you can’t get it in the home, let’s make sure there’s community provision. And let’s talk to the Internet service providers and make sure nobody’s getting gouged.”

He also addressed the issue of manufacturing and how Canada can cope with the loss of so-called muscle jobs to offshore competition, particularly China.

“We can compete with China in all kinds of ways and we are competing with China,” he said.

“Let me give you an example. There are some Canadian companies who make some of the best double-insulated windows in the world. We can build them here – we have the technology – and sell them in China, where they are building skyscrapers faster than you can say Jack Robinson. We’ve got to compete on technology and we’ve got to compete on quality.”

Admitting he is doubtful whether Canada can compete with China on “the low end” manufacturing, he said, “we have to compete on the high end of technology, such as energy-efficient technology, and an example are these windows. If we can do this, we