Seated on a concrete slab outside Roy Thomson Hall, the woman and her lunch companion looked quizzically at the cluster of photographers and reporters waiting expectantly at the streetcar stop.

"Who's everyone waiting for?" she asked, a hint of excitement in her voice.

The response was not the one she was hoping for. "Stephen Harper?" she responded with a tinge of disappointment. "I was hoping it was a celebrity or something." With that, she went on her merry way.

It was a common response from Torontonians who stumbled onto Mr. Harper's latest attempt to look spontaneous at a meticulously staged event - this time an exit from a streetcar, alongside his son, to commemorate his new public transit policy, followed by a brisk walk several blocks in 33-degree heat with a sweaty press pack struggling to keep up. Whereas TV anchor-turned-Tory candidate Peter Kent attracted a few curious glances from passers-by as he entertained waiting journalists with a dissertation on liberal media bias, news that the leader of the Official Opposition would soon be in their midst didn't exactly cause a buzz.

For the Tories, the bad (if predictable) news out of yesterday is that Mr. Harper still has a long way to go before residents of Canada's largest metropolis warm up to him. But despite the goofy streetcar ride and power-walk, the good news is that party brass seems to have finally recognized it'll take more than contrived photo-ops to get there.

The Tories' pledge to reward public transit users with tax credits, unveiled over lunch yesterday at the party's national caucus meeting, is not earth-shattering. Having had the bad fortune to release it the same day the new Governor-General was announced, Mr. Harper will probably see it buried in most news outlets. And frankly, it's not even necessarily a particularly intelligent policy, since it's highly debatable whether cost is the main factor discouraging Canadians from using public transit. If anything will get more passengers onto subways and buses, it's direct investment to modernize the system so that it will get them where they need to go.

But symbolically, the fact that Toronto's transit system is on the Tories' radar at all says some encouraging things about where their heads are at.

The Tories have long been aware, of course, that they'll need a major breakthrough in Ontario to win power - something they made progress toward in last year's election. But to date, their hope has mostly been to conquer the province outside Toronto, at times coming close to acknowledging outright that they have little hope of winning over left-leaning urbanites.

They're probably right - no matter how well things go elsewhere, downtown Toronto seats are likely a lost cause. But in writing off the city proper, they've effectively written off much of the surrounding area as well - nearly half the ridings in the country's largest province, considering how much the Greater Toronto Area now sprawls.

To date, the Tories seem to have been operating under the premise that the "905 belt" is a separate entity from the city it surrounds, hoping policies that play well with their base in rural ridings - opposition to same-sex marriage, for instance - will resonate there as well. In so doing, they've overestimated the gap between urbanites and suburbanites. True, smaller government and lower taxes may sell a little better in Brampton or Markham - but voters there, many of whom work in the city and used to live there, still tend to share the same basic values, concerns and outlooks as Torontonians.

Yesterday's announcement was Mr. Harper's way of reaching out to those voters. On first glance, the downtown venue might have given it the appearance of a sop to Torontonians. But its real intent could be found in the example of savings that the Tories chose to highlight. Up to $485 annually, the accompanying press release promised, would be saved by "users of more costly commuter services like Ontario's GO Transit" - a system used almost exclusively by those living in surrounding areas.

More broadly, the announcement hinted at a strategy to tackle congestion - an issue getting lots of play downtown this summer because of the excessive smog, but of far greater concern to suburbanites wasting a large chunk of their lives getting to and from work. While it's debatable whether his tax credit scheme will get many cars off the road, even showing some interest in the subject gives Mr. Harper a leg up on the Liberals, who've fallen down on it.

Supporting public transit won't play well with the Conservatives' base. But if they don't look beyond that base, they'll be sitting on the sidelines forever. Yesterday's attempt won't make Mr. Harper a celebrity the next time he strolls through Toronto, but it might start to endear him to the people who live next to it.