UPDATED: Hope Fades ......

It is becoming difficult to hold on to hope. Despite all we know about the Harper regime, despite all that has been written about its corruption, its abuse of power, its undermining of our democratic institutions, its insidious appeal to the worst in our natures, it seems to all be coming down to an issue that has already been decided by the courts: the niqab and its use during citizenship ceremonies.

It is almost enough to make me hold up my hands in abject surrender.

According to the latest poll conducted by Forum Research, if an election were held today, Stephen Harper would win another government, albeit a minority one:

The survey of 1,499 Canadian voters has Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s party ahead with 34 per cent support, compared to 28 per cent for the NDP and 27 per cent support for the Liberals.

At the heart of this resurgence, according to Forum president Lorne Bozinoff, is that [t]wo-thirds (64 per cent) of Canadian voters are opposed to having fully veiled women swear the oath of citizenship, while just over a quarter (26) support it.

Though the poll’s findings are just a snapshot in time, if the same results occurred the night of the Oct. 19 election, the Conservatives would win a minority — 151 seats in the 338-seat House of Commons. The NDP would form the opposition again with 105 seats, the Liberals would seize 76 seats, the Bloc six seats and the Greens one.

And while the neo-barbarians are ready to resume their assault on our putative values and traditions, what are the oppositions parties doing? Fighting each other, of course. Thomas Walkom writes,

New Democratic Party leader Mulcair dismisses Trudeau as a callow youth. Echoing Conservative attack ads, his New Democrats say the 43-year-old Liberal leader just isn’t ready to become prime minister.

From time to time, and again echoing the Conservatives, Mulcair dismissively refers to his Liberal rival as “Justin.”

Trudeau is no less harsh. He accuses Mulcair of duplicity — of saying one thing in French and another in English. He says the NDP, by pandering to Quebec separatists, threatens national unity.

He dredges up old charges that Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, once contemplated the idea of exporting fresh water in bulk.

All of this occurs at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are quietly edging up in the polls.

As those two parties put on full display, not co-operation to oust the tyrant but instead their avidity for power at any price, progressives are put in a bind:

These so-called progressive voters desperately want Harper gone. And they are horrified by the real possibility that this war to the death between Liberals and New Democrats will split the anti-Harper vote, thus allowing the Conservatives to win power again.

Here's a sample of what the NDP is doing to achieve power:

Another ad aims to maim support for Trudeau in the manufacturing sector by referencing a suggestion Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland made years earlier about letting the big three automakers — Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler — go bankrupt.

The third brings up the Liberal leader’s $20,000 speaking fees he charged charities and school boards, accusing him of skipping House of Common votes to collect money “for something that’s already a part of his job.”

Trudeau offered to reimburse some fees in 2013.

It’s a tactic that’s borrowed from the Conservative Party, who have been running attack ads against Trudeau with the tagline, “Just not ready” for months.

Canadians have notoriously short memories. Yet as we get ever closer to October 19, they are bound to remember certain things, the wrong things, I fear.

UPDATE: In his comment, Anon pointed out that the radio ad war was, in fact, started by the Liberals. I am unable to embed the ad, but you can listen to it here. While perhaps mild compared to the acerbity of the NDP attack ads, it serves to amply illustrate that both opposition parties are guilty of divisive tactics in their respective quests for power.

The Shape of Conservative Attack Ads To Come?

A new This Hour Has 22 Minutes song parody of Meghan Trainor's hit "All About That Bass" reveals possible Conservative pre-election attack strategies aimed squarely at the Liberal party leader.

More On Harper's Attack Ads

I hope to write an actual blog post on an entirely different topic later today, but since the latest poll shows a very strong reaction against the Prime Minister's puerile attack ads directed against Justin Trudeau, I can't resist reproducing a few of the letters from Star readers in this morning's edition expressing their thoughts on the issue. Be sure to check out this link if you want to read all of them :

Tories attack Trudeau on first day in new job, April 16

These ads are pathetic. What an awful was to instill the values of leadership to the youth of our country. When kids see it on after dinner you’re showing them that it’s OK to bully to get what you want. High school teens running for school council see that in order to win they should bash their opponents. And to think this cost upwards of $600,000 for production and media time?

As an undecided voter I find this absolutely disgusting and an awful waste of money and time. Get your stuff together. We don’t want a bully, we want a confident, bright leader with integrity who leads through respect and inspires us.

I was undecided about Justin Trudeau until I saw the Conservative Party attack ads. I’d like to thank Harper’s crew for making up my mind for me. They’ve pushed me right into Trudeau’s arms. Maybe they should revert back to a party name suggested a few years ago. The Conservative Reform Alliance Party. The acronym is certainly appropriate.

Lesley Chalmers, Toronto

Stephen Harper’s Regressive Conservative Party has truly sunk to new lows in its recent attack ad on Justin Trudeau. It is completely beside the point that Mr. Trudeau took his shirt off in the context of a charity function. Attack ads are contemptuous, juvenile tactics that we as Canadians should be disgusted with, period — especially in non-election years. Mr. Harper must feel terribly threatened to stoop to such levels.

Jenny Tsao, Thornhill

The prime minister should be ashamed of approving and standing behind such infantile, idiotic, grade-school bully style, expensive and totally useless attack ads against Justin Trudeau. Is this something an adult professional organization can be proud of?

I hope the people of Canada realize in the next election how absolutely shallow this political party really is!

Peter Buck, Coldwater

Is Harper Just A Big Bully?

These Star readers seem to think so:

Tories attack Trudeau on first day in new job, April 16

It is fair to criticize opposing politicians for their political beliefs and policies. It is right to deplore bullying in all its forms. Now we find that the usual unfair, unjust and bullying attack ads of the Harper Tory’s are aimed directly at the new leader of the Liberal party.

They do not attack Mr. Trudeau’s politics but childishly attack him and only him. This takes the usual Harper cyber-bullying to a whole new level. Given the example this sets for other cyber bullies, we should no longer tolerate these unprovoked personal attacks.

Is it time for the Conservatives to find a new leader and a new path?

Bob Sture, Innisfil

Any survivor of sexual abuse knows that the effects last a lifetime. And then there are the victims who don’t survive.

Recently, young perpetrators of rape have added new horrors to their crime, taking pictures of their victim and circulating them in their community as if the photos were trophies celebrating a kill. No wonder the resulting name-calling and degradation lead some girls to commit suicide.

What is happening to our society when vicious attacks on individual integrity, physical and/or psychological, are celebrated as some sort of victory? We have to look to the highest levels in our society for at least part of the explanation.

I refer to the “attack ad” mentality of the Conservative Party in Canada, and of political strategists in other countries as well. They are not to be dismissed as merely tiresome or childish. These chilling, contemptuous, and arrogant messages are casting a shadow over the population that condones and even encourages brutality as legitimate self-expression.

Any society that fails to respect its own and protect its own, that tolerates a government bent on degrading and eliminating those honourably serving as the Opposition, will not survive for long. Our young are already reflecting the harm such a toxic political environment causes.

It’s time Canada’s citizens took more responsibility in demanding a better example from its elected representatives.

Dianna Rodgers Allen, Parry Sound

I am shocked by the Conservative attack ad on Justin Trudeau I just saw on television.

At a time when we are saddened by the suicides of teenagers who have been humiliated and bullied after demeaning representations of them have been posted publicly, at a time when we wonder how teenagers can be so cruel, at a time when we ask what we can do to stop this, we are faced with the same practice at the very highest level of our country.

Terribly sad that all those involved in planning, shooting, approving and subsequently running this ad thought it was OK.

Yvette Laezza, Mississauga

Allan Gregg on Attack Ads

I have written about Allan Gregg on this blog before; probably his most noteworthy recent contribution to political discourse came in his speech to Carleton University’s School of Public Affairs, in which he denounced the Orwellian bent of the Harper regime in its promotion of ignorance in place information and knowledge.

Gregg offers his thoughts on attacks ads in this morning's Star. In contrast to the blood sport that it has become under the Harper regime, Gregg defines politics this way:

For good or ill, politics is the process by which we organize civil, democratic society. It is used to allocate a nation’s scarce resources. Through it, we confer a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Because of it, we are able to represent the wishes of the majority and at the same time protect the rights of the minority. And at bottom, politics creates a state that has the potential to do immense good or infinite harm and, as such, we all have a vested interest that the best and brightest and only those who are motivated by the public good are encouraged to enter public life.

By this definition, the Harper government has abjectly failed the public whose interests and well-being they were charged with protecting and promoting. Gregg readily admits that attack ads do work because they play to people's innate cynicism about politicians. And as I have asserted before, I believe that the additional purpose behind Harper's 'politics of denunciation' is the discouragement of people from voting, thereby allowing the 'true believers' (whoever those benighted souls may be) to have disproportionate influence at the polls.

I consider Gregg as one who knows of what he speaks. The 'brains' behind the 1993 campaign ad ridiculing Jean Chretien's facial deformity, he must have at some point experienced a Damascene conversion, no doubt facilitated by the Harper regime's relentless practice of politics that bespeaks a depraved indifference to the health of our democracy, of which attack ads are only a small part. Gregg now seems to be spending much of his time trying to atone for those past mistakes, and today's Star article seems very much a part of that process of penance.

So I will leave the final word with the former pollster:

... those who believe that this (the public good) is “what politics are really about” have a responsibility to draw attention to its virtues and not just its shortcomings.

Tory Attack Ads Against Mulcair Begin

And like the good Pavlovian creatures the Conservatives assume the electorate to be, they eagerly await our unbridled panic.

If You Can't Take The Heat, Timmy .....

As I predicted earlier, the right-wing has begun to howl over the the Working Famalies' ad showing an actor representing Tim Hudak meeting with some corporate executives complaining about government regulations that are hampering their thirst for unlimited profits. It ends with the Hudak-actor nodding in agreement when the question is asked, "Can we go back to the old days, when you and Mike ran things?", followed by "That a boy."

According to a report in today's Star, the Hudak cabal is complaining to the Television Bureau of Canada, claiming that Working Families, a coalition of unions, is really a front for the Liberals. Conservative campaign chairman Mark Spiro says that since the meeting depicted in the ad never happened, it is a violation of the guidelines for accuracy in advertising.

Really, Mr. Spiro? Have you taken no notice of either the tone or the slanderous nature of the attack ads currently being churned out by your federal brethren?

The depth and breadth of Conservative hypocrisy is truly a thing to behold.

Anti-Tim Hudak Ad

Ever notice how the right-wing feels it's perfectly fine to run attack ads, yet when they are the subject, they cry foul? I'm waiting for the howls to begin.