Last Sunday, the three party leaders debated in French and English.

I missed the CTV forum on Thursday so I’ll reference the Sunday debates. To be fair they really weren’t debates, more Q & A sessions. That’s short for a questions and answers.

The questions were anticipated and the answers were scripted. There were no telling blows but there was a subtle change in strategy that is often the first indicator of change.

In Sunday’s session, the Premier took after Liberal Leader Shawn Graham calling him an obstructionist, accusing him of attacking teachers and students and fighting the Conservatives’ obsession with tax-reduction. When an incumbent leader starts attacking his opponent, it’s usually a sign that he is feeling the heat of battle.

To my knowledge, Graham has never attacked a teacher or a student.

He has simply acknowledged a truth and that is that New Brunswick suffers from the highest rate of functional illiteracy in the Country and New Brunswick students on average have the lowest test scores in Canada. Logic would tell you we have a serious problem in this Province.

Education is key to our economic future. If we are not making the grade, there has to be something wrong with our education system or there has to be something wrong with our culture or our society in that it chooses to tolerate the existing circumstance.

Mr. Graham is quite right to bring our education-deficit to the public’s attention. He is quite right to question the system. That is not a critique of teachers or their students. It is a cry in their defense and recognition of a problem that needs to be fixed. We cannot afford to ignore it any longer.

Another sign of concern was the Premier’s attack on Mr. Graham for opposing his tax cuts. That was followed by a last minute promise by the Premier to cut provincial income taxes by 2% a year for the next four years.

The reduction assumes an annual rate of inflation of 2% so the net impact for taxpayers will be zero. Numerically, the impact on government will also be zero but here’s the catch, the spending power of a no-growth revenue stream will effectively be reduced by 2% a year.

The cost of lost tax revenue over four years would be an estimated $120 million.

• Where will that money come from?

• Will it be found in higher fees for government services or in higher electricity rates that would permit NB Power to deliver surplus funds to the government?

• The federal government provides some 40% of the government’s current revenue. How will it react to further tax cuts by the province?

Everyone would prefer to have their taxes lowered. We also want the services that are provided by government – hospitals, schools, teachers, highways, etc. If the government should be allowed to shrink its tax revenue, it will have fewer dollars to pay for these services.

The wealthiest in our community benefit most from reductions in income tax. There is no jurisdiction in the world that I know of where persistent tax-cutting has created wealth for the majority of its citizens. It’s true that Albertans benefit from tax cuts and the province is wealthy. The difference is that Alberta’s tax-cuts are funded by royalties earned from the harvesting of oil and gas.

New Brunswick cannot afford to push business or high earners away from the province with high taxes but neither can the province afford to compete with Alberta’s tax regime unless we find a way to replace the revenue lost from tax-cuts. Two thirds of our residents need help with their reading and the Lord wants to give away the money that could help them learn.

People have been critical of this election campaign saying it’s boring, too quiet, without issues.

Quiet elections are often an indicator of pending change because people have already made up their mind about where they will deliver their vote. Another sign of change is high voter turnout at advance polls. That has been the case this election.

Change possibility is also found in the Conservative advertisement where Mr. Lord is pictured with Stephen Harper and boasts of their “strong relationship”. If Mr. Lord was confident of a win, he wouldn’t be sharing space with the Prime Minister.

On Tuesday following the debate, a poll conducted by Corporate Research Associates (CRA) showed the Liberals with a two point lead 44% to 42% for the Conservatives. More significantly, the poll showed an 8% increase in support for Graham as Premier, closing to within four points of Lord. The poll acknowledged a plus or minus margin of error of 3.8%. That means that Graham could actually have been ahead of Lord.

Confirmation of the CRA results was delivered Thursday evening by a CTV poll that showed the Liberals leading 45% to 43% with 11% for the NDP.

To confuse matters, Bristol/Omnifacts released the results of both a poll and a panel survey yesterday. The poll showed the Conservatives with a 1% lead and a 3.1% margin of error, in other words a tie. The panel survey which has a significantly higher margin of error (5%) when compared to the poll shows the Conservatives with a 5% lead. This newspaper chose to headline results of the panel survey.

In the absence of a weekend swing, it seems we have a horse race.

Indeed, the election could be a real nail-biter. The wild card could be the NDP. They could be spoilers. They could also be king-makers.

If a small percent of NDP supporters move to the Liberals, we could have a majority Liberal government late Monday evening.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com