UPDATED: The Ad Wars Begin

Since I am currently preoccupied with rebuilding a small part of our deck (unskilled non-trades person that I am, the work is proceeding slowly), I shall take the easy way out this morning and embed some political ads that are making the rounds on You Tube and inviting commentary from the punditry.

The Conservative attack ad, which sows the seeds of doubt about Justin Trudeau, was stolen from inspired by a 2011 Manitoba NDP 30-second spot; for the sake of comparison, the latter immediately follows the Conservative one.

Enjoy:









UPDATE: The Globe and Mail's John Doyle weighs in with amusing and pointed commentary on both political ads and the consortium debates.

I Feel Better Already

....knowing that Mr. Harper's fight against ISIS hasn't distracted him from an even greater threat to all that is holy and good:

Rick's Latest Rant

In his latest, Rick Mercer turns his acerbic wit on the theft of copyright being engineered by the Harper regime to facilitate its campaign of attack ads.

"Flirting With Fascism"

That is the lacerating assessment offered by CTV's Don Martin as he editorializes about the impending theft of copyrighted material engineered (and originally intended to be hidden) by the Harper regime in their next omnibus bill. Documents leaked to the media have made the public aware of this nefarious scheme, which would allow political parties to use any news footage, public commentary, etc. that they choose in political attack ads.



Clearly, and unsurprisingly, there is no depth to which this cabal won't sink to hang on to power.

Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear Me

Lordy, I see young Tim Hudak is hurling those sticks and stones again. Won't that boy ever try acting like a grown man?

A Glimmer Of Principle

Laurie Hawn, Alberta

Brent Rathgeber, Alberta

Kevin Sorenson, Alberta

Mike Allen, New Brunswick

Joe Daniel, Ontario

Larry Miller, Ontario

Stephen Woodworth, Ontario

What do all of the above M.P.s have in common? In addition to being members of the federal Conservative caucus, each, it seems, has some surprising integrity. Each has refused to participate in the Harper plan to use taxpayer-funded mailouts to attack Justin Trudeau.

In that, they have earned my respect, which, in itself, I suppose, is a pretty sad commentary on the Conservative Party of Canada. After all, they are only doing what is morally, ethically, and fiscally right in refusing to participate in another Harper-led scheme of character assassination.

I can only hope others will join in this 'palace revolt.'

On Harper's Cyberbullying and Hypocrisy

Since I arose uncharacteristically late this morning, I am still working on today's post. In the interim, I take the liberty of reproducing some letters from Star readers on a topic dear to the heart of progressives: Harper's attack ads:

Re: Tory ad war drowns out debate over free speech, April 25

The federal Conservative party professes to decry the repugnant act of cyberbullying. Definition: “when the Internet, cellphones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person.” The recent Conservative attack ads against Justin Trudeau seem to fit this definition. Considering that we are not in the midst of an election campaign, these spiteful attack ads on a fellow Member of Parliament sure look a lot like cyberbullying to me.

Garth Dynes, Unionville

Bravo to Justin Trudeau for leaving the Conservative attack ads in his dust by taking a positive approach to his campaign strategy. I’ve always wondered if in my lifetime I would ever see a politician promote his or her (party’s) own worth through positive ad campaigns based on integrity.

While the Harper government considers implementing changes to federal laws that address and prevent cyberbullying, would it not be a good time for it to reflect on its own negative and extremely juvenile bullying tactics when it comes to the direction that its “promotional” material is taking?

Anne Chisholm, Salt Spring Island, B.C.

Tim Harper suggests that the Prime Minister's “softer side” was on display in his recent meeting with the Nova Scotia mother of a victim of cyberbullying. Your columnist can't be serious. For the man ultimately responsible for the repulsive attack ads that are relegating Canadian political conversation to the sub-basement to commiserate with anyone on the subject of bullying surely redefines hypocrisy.

Ray Jones, Toronto

So Justin Trudeau took his shirt off in public for a charity — so what? The Tories won't let Stephen Harper take off his shirt because the stuffing would fall out.

Stephen Adams, London, Ont.

Some Well-Deserved Ridicule

I suspect only the party faithful and the 'true-believers' would find these pictures objectionable:

Is this A New Crime In Harperland?

While the word commit has several meanings, when it is used without the preposition 'to' (as in, He is committed to her cause), it is invariably associated with something heinous (John committed arson; Shelley committed fraud; Lorne committed murder). It is therefore not likely a slip of the tongue when the man who heads our government (sorry, I can't bear to refer to him as our Prime Minister) says, at about 1:20 on the following video, that this is not the time to "commit sociology" when asked about the arrests of two men this week who are accused of conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack on a Via train:

Never one to miss an opportunity to denigrate a political rival, in this case, of course, Justin Trudeau, who last week talked about the need to find the 'root causes' of terrorism, something very much a priority for the United States, Harper apparently sees such concern as only fodder for scorn, ridicule, and political opportunism.

And then there is Harrper's faithful pet parrot Pierre Poilievre, never one to add an original thought to political discourse, content to simply repeat what he has been told to promulgate by his master. Take a look at the following video where he is in full plumage; especially noteworthy is what he says at about 2:20, which seems to leave interviewer Evan Solomon almost speechless:

Stephen Harper and his minions have always been quite adept at offering simple solutions to the simple-minded and those who prefer their thinking and world-views to be uncluttered by nuance.

For those sufficiently reflective to understand that complexity is a part of the very nature of existence, the man and his machine have nothing to offer, and can expect nothing from us except our continuing contempt.

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.

Incoming Editorial Cartoon

Oh, I do so savor The Toronto Star.

For Your Further Consideration

Pondering The Dark Arts

For those as weary of political attack ads as I am, The Star's Carol Goar has an interesting column in today's edition. Entitled Debating ‘dark arts’ of political campaigning, Goar relates her experience of moderating a panel over the weekend comprised of

... Jaime Watt, the primary architect of former Ontario premier Mike Harris’s two election campaigns in the ’90s; David Herle, co-chair of former prime minister Paul Martin’s two election campaigns a decade later; and Chima Nkendirim, the strategist behind Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s victory in 2010.

While each had his own definition of his role during a political campaign, Herle and Watts defended the use of what they called 'negative ads'. While averring their distaste for attacks on a person's personal life, and agreed that mocking physical appearances/disabilities, they both feel it is fair game to question a candidates motives and fitness for office, which, to me, despite their rationalizations, is tantamount to endorsing character assassination, probably in many ways much worse than mocking of physical attributes. Nkendirim was the only one who felt his prime duty is to defend his candidate vigorously.

Rather disingenuously, Herle professed to being deeply troubled by low voter turnout:

“When 40 per cent of the population isn’t voting, the results are wildly unrepresentative of the people,” he acknowledged. “But we don’t know what the driver of that is.” He suggested it might be the reduced relevance of government in an age of globalization and market economics.

I suspect a bit of willful ignorance on Mr. Herle's part. As political observers far more astute than I have observed, there is little doubt that political attack ads, by the very fact that they lower political discourse to the level of schoolyard taunts, are a disincentive to voter participation.

And as I have suggested before, that is precisely the outcome desired by those who have proven to be such adept masters of these dark arts, the Harper Conservatives.

Harper Hate-Mongering

The latest attack ad, this one against newly-appointed Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, serves as a timely reminder of the Harper government's seemingly endless capacity for hateful and divisive propaganda. In this, I make an all-too obvious observation. But I have, for some time, wondered about the audience for those ads, and searching my blog archive, I don't think I have commented upon this aspect previously.

No matter which Conservative attack ad one chooses, and there have been many, it seems that a standard template for the imagery and the narration predominates, both always out of context and derisive in tone. Designed to inspire fear, resentment and mockery towards their targets, they reveal something very significant about their collective architect, the Harper regime: a morally bankrupt and debased view of the electorate.

I have often wondered whether the target audience, the general electorate, has ever stopped to think about the implications of having a government that regards them as little more than Pavlovian dogs, deficient in intellect, general awareness, and sensibility, poised to respond to the latest offering from their 'master'. Consider the ad against Justin Trudeau, which I posted yesterday. There is a kind of carnival music playing in the background, suggestive of frivolity and lightness, the image they are trying to instill of Trudeau in the viewer's mind. The Liberal leader is shown doing a kind of striptease and behaving in an exaggerated, almost effeminate way. Cue the contempt.

The other ad released yesterday listed Trudeau's experience as a camp counsellor, rafting instructor and drama teacher for two years, the later delivered with particular derision (the message: a real leader has contempt for the arts). While its message is blunt and obvious, that very bluntness makes the intended audience manipulation more than obvious, something that Canadian citizens should be offended, outraged, and disturbed by, inasmuch as it is a bald admission that power is the regime's only raison d'etre.

And yet we are told that attack ads are very effective. I can only hope that more and more people begin to exercise their innate critical faculties and see these ads for what they really are: a blatant expression of contempt for the voters of Canada.

Conservative Attack Ad - UPDATED

I suspect many will agree that this ad says more about the Conservative Party behind it than it does about its subject:

UPDATE: This Star editorial provides some useful context for and analysis of this attack ad.

More Brilliance From Montreal Simon

Many thanks to Montreal Simon, who created this trenchant attack ad:

Some Blather From Gerry Nichols: Your Mother Wears Army Boots

Earlier this week, Gerry Nichols, self-described on his website as One of Canada's Top Five Political Minds, wrote an opinion piece in The Start entitled, In praise of negative political ads. In it, the former head of the National Citizens Coalition asserts that positive political ads are a far greater offence to the body politic than negative ones.

However, in reading his piece, it becomes very obvious very quickly that his thesis is merely a thinly veiled excuse to attack Thomas Mulcair and the upbeat ad that is intended to introduce him to the electorate:

Complaining that the ad is vacuous and provides no information to help the voter make an informed decision, he goes on to extol attack ads:

Ironically, it’s the much maligned negative ads that are much more likely to focus on the nitty-gritty of where a candidate stands on policies.

Just think about your typical attack ad: “Candidate Jones wants to raise taxes on everything!” or “A vote for candidate Smith is a vote to destroy our public health-care system”.

In short, attack ads often raise issues people actually care about. And this is one reason why, like them or not, negative spots resonate with voters.

Oh really? I have said it before and I'll say it again: attack ads, in my view, have a twofold purpose: the most obvious is to denigrate a political opponent, as evidenced in the latest Tory effort to discredit Bob Rae; the second and more insidious effect is to discourage citizens from participating in the politcal process, especially at election time, leaving the field open to the 'true believers, the die-hard supporters of Stephen Harper.

And it is for the latter reason that I will never be able to forgive Harper for the damage he has done and will continue to do to the soul of our nation.

UPDATE: For a cross-section of Star readers' views on Nichols' piece, click here.

Harper Inc. Continues To Deform Our National Ethos

While it is probably impossible to define the soul of a nation, one aspect of the Canadian psyche must surely be a generosity of spirit and a concern for the collective that is absent in many other nations.

It is the relentless attack upon this very spirit, with the intention of minimizing its influence in policy formulation, that I find the most reprehensible aspect of the Harper regime. While I have written before about these efforts, I was reminded of them in reading Tim Harper's column this morning in The Star. A few excerpts follow:

Mulcair had barely made his way to the stage late Saturday when the Conservative party fired off a release, branding him “an opportunist,’’ a man with blind ambition and a divisive personality.

There was Maxime Bernier, a minister of state from Stephen Harper’s tiny Quebec team, branding Mulcair a socialist, a man who will raise your taxes, take away your freedom and intervene daily in your life.

Then Heritage Minister James Moore entered the fray, bringing the attack up yet another notch, referring to Mulcair’s “vicious streak,” then repeating that he was “vicious and personal’’ in his approach to politics.

While these attempts at character assassination can be dismissed as simply reflections of the gutter politics with which Harper and his acolytes are intimately familiar, their costs can be high indeed, as pointed out by a Star reader this morning:

Re: PM disgusts voters with attack ads, Column, March 22

I am really concerned for the Canadian psyche. Here we go again with negative ads even though we are not in an election. What a message for every child in the schoolyard — name-calling, half-truths and demeaning another person's character are okay. Politics is destroying our civil society instead of providing much-needed leadership. The Conservatives should be inspiring us to work together for a better country. They should be talking about policies that will lead to a better, more cohesive society rather than attempting to humiliate the opposition.

They need to stop the negative ads and start focusing on their own party platform. Continuing that negativity will serve as a wedge in our country that can only get bigger and bigger.

Bonnie Bacvar, North York

It is a point well-taken, but one which this Harper Conservative government, I suspect, doesn't give a damn about.

Discouragements to Democratic Participation

The litany of abuses, even crimes, against democracy committed by the Harper government is indeed long. Probably the gravest damage done by this regime, and I believe the damage is intentional, is to alienate increasing numbers of citizens from the electoral process.

In his column today, Bob Hepburn, in writing about the renewal of attack ads Harper is so famous for, has this to say:

Indeed, since he became Prime Minister, Harper has lowered the overall standard on what is acceptable in Canadian politics. He has allowed his attack dogs to operate with impunity, taking his cue from poisonous American campaigns. With his new ad, Harper is clearly signalling he believes “going negative” is the only way of winning and he is not about to stop.

For years, political scientists in Canada and the U.S. have argued that the growing use of negative ads, which topped 60 per cent of all ads in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, fosters lower voter turnout and a loss of trust in governments.

While others may seek a deeper strategy behind these despicable ads, I sincerely believe that their main purpose is to do just that, foster lower voter turnout so that a strong turnout by their own rabid supporters ensures a Conservative majority in perpetuity.

I have said this before, and I'll say it again: the damage this regime is doing to our democratic traditions renders it roundly and manifestly unfit to govern.