Yesterday's Conservative platform contained a curious measure, reversing an earlier, controversial position that Stephen Harper's government had spent a lot of political capital defending.

Bill C-10, which passed the House of Commons but hadn't become law before Parliament was dissolved, gave the heritage minister the power to pick and choose which television and film productions were worthy of a tax credit, based on the deemed quality of their content.

On Page 27 of the Conservative platform, it says that this bill would not be re-introduced if the government is re-elected. And that a future Conservative government "would take into account serious concerns that have been expressed by film creators and investors."

This is a curious piece of strategy on the Conservatives' part. Yes, the television and film community was angered and alarmed by C-10. But given other palpable anger and concern in the arts community over other Conservative budget cuts and policies, it's hard to imagine these voters suddenly embracing the Conservatives to reward them for backing down on C-10.

On the other hand, C-10 was a rallying cry for many who represent the Conservative "base" vote, people who were offended by sexual, violent or otherwise distasteful content in some past productions which had received the tax credit, people who didn't want their taxes to pay for that kind of art.

Today, one of the main proponents of C-10, Charles McVety from the Canada Christian College, was on Politics with Don Newman. He said he was shocked and quite sad about the sudden change, and disappointed that the "loud voices of a few wealthy actors would override the voices of grassroots Canadians that really don't want taxpayer dollars to go to fund offensive films that use f-words gratuitously and are really about pornography."

McVety accuses the campaign of making the change because of the polls. He said the change is "uncharacteristic of conservative ideology." He said he was afraid that a lot of like-minded Canadians would no longer be motivated to come out and vote for the Conservatives.

He believes his organization's efforts were responsible for getting an extra 1.3 million Canadians to cast a vote for the Conservatives in 2006. He says if the voter turnout is low the Conservatives will lose the election, and he fears the kind of result that could happen next Tuesday if this change to the platform is a de-motivator.

Nonetheless, he said he still encourages people to vote Conservative.

So would the 18 Conservative incumbents who won their seats by less than five per cent of the vote in the last election.

—Janyce McGregor