[afransen]

This will be too easily transformed into an attack on all immigrants and ex-pats, who these ads suggest might be less Canadians and unworthy of the prime minister's office.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

These ads are beyond lame. If no election has been called, they should get off my TV. And my lawn. Bastards.

 

[nfitz]

The Dion ads were far more successful.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

I'd think that running a very similiar campaign so shortly after the previous one, will only make the Conservatives look bad. Not that the Conservatives can do much worse ... the last poll put them at only 9% in Quebec.

 

[Epi]

These ads aren't exactly targetting anyone who uses this forum (aka Torontonians, people interested in urban life). So basically they won't work on anyone here. They will work on the multitudes who have been suspicious of Iggy from the start. I think the critical miscalculation though, is that people either have an opinion about Iggy or they don't care. The people who already have an opinion aren't going to be swayed, and the people who don't care will see this for what it is.

The attack ads on Dion worked because they portrayed him badly as a leader. Someone with bad leadership ability and someone who bad policies. These new ads don't do anything of the sort. There's so many immigrant and expat Canadians that it's a pretty dumb ad. Since the ads don't say that Iggy is actually a guy with bad ideas, or is a bad leader they look horribly shallow. As well, considering we've just seen the USA elect ivory-tower egghead and former law professor Barack Obama to the white house, I don't think the 'elitist' charge is going to resound too well with the people.

Overall, the Conservatives thought they could replay the entire successful campaign against Dion but have failed to realize that the entire playing field is different now. Still, it's too hard to say at the moment. The Liberals don't have any specific plans at the moment to show they are any better than the Conservatives, and Canadian voters are not necessarily angry enough with Harper to really change things around if an election were held soon.

 

[afransen]

Harper is now salting the earth in Quebec, in effect providing material aid to the sovereignty movement.

Will Tory attack ads sting Harper?
TheStar.com
May 15, 2009
Chantal Hébert

MONTREAL—It is unprecedented for a sitting Canadian prime minister to approve – as Stephen Harper did this week – French-language attack ads that depict a fellow federalist leader as hostile to Quebec.

For as long as there has been a vibrant sovereignty movement, such a tactic has been deemed too potentially corrosive for the national fabric to be used to score points in a partisan game.

In the larger unity picture, the notion of a prime minister launching an advertising campaign to fuel a nationalist backlash against another national party leader is the equivalent of poisoning a common well in the hope that one's neighbour will be the first to die.

Moreover, over the past two decades, the Bloc Québécois has always been the prime beneficiary of federalist divisions on Quebec.

In this spirit, Gilles Duceppe must have thought he had gone straight to sovereignist heaven when he was apprised of the attack ads the Conservatives put together as part of their Quebec counter-offensive against Michael Ignatieff this week.

If Harper had wanted to do the Bloc's bidding at Conservative expense, he would not have proceeded otherwise.

The gist of the Conservative ads could have been lifted right out of an open letter Duceppe penned last week as part of the Bloc's own initial volley against a resurgent Liberal party.

The Conservative attack ads portray Ignatieff as a leader who uses Parisian French out of contempt for Quebec francophones and their accent.

The Liberal leader is quoted as describing Quebecers as people who fantasize that they are different when they are no more than North Americans who happen to speak French and as depicting Quebec's role at UNESCO as an object of international ridicule.

Like Pierre Trudeau, another ad asserts, Ignatieff feels it is important to keep Quebec in check.

Only a few months ago, Harper was accusing the Liberals – in English – of cozying up to separatists to secure Bloc support for their coalition with the NDP. Now – in French – the Prime Minister's party is portraying the Liberal leader as a detractor of Quebec's character and aspirations.

No federalist leader has ever been immune to having bits and pieces of his past record used against him in Quebec.

Harper originally belonged to a party that was committed to eliminating official bilingualism.

He was once a vocal supporter of the partition of Quebec in the event of secession and a staunch adversary of the province's iconic language law.

Jean Chrétien's role in the demise of the Meech Lake accord and the patriation of the Constitution was a long-standing irritant in francophone Quebec.

Yet, in similar circumstances as Harper's – whose party has been going down fast in Quebec – Kim Campbell and Paul Martin resisted the temptation of scorching the earth their federalist competition was standing on.

One reason was the legitimate fear of a boomerang effect on federalism. In the 1995 referendum, past public federalist divisions had a devastating impact on the No campaign.

Ignatieff was not an active participant in Canadian politics at that time. But Harper, who sat as an MP in the House of Commons, was also missing in referendum action, along with the rest of the Reform party.

It may be that if the Prime Minister had seen action first-hand on the unity front, he would be more wary of salting the federalist earth in Quebec for his own electoral purposes.

 

[unimaginative2]

She's exactly right, though it's hardly an unbroken taboo. Recruiting separatists and bashing the Liberals as being hostile to Quebec was the entire basis of Mulroney's campaigns.

 

[Amphibius]

Those ads paint Ignatieff as an academic and elitist. But so what, weren't those the same labels attributed to Barack Obama? Yeah, nice job Harper of making your opponent appear more worldly and knowledgable than yourself.

 

[jade_lee]

Those ads paint Ignatieff as an academic and elitist. But so what, weren't those the same labels attributed to Barack Obama? Yeah, nice job Harper of making your opponent appear more worldly and knowledgable than yourself.

Got to love that!

 

[nfitz]

They will work on the multitudes who have been suspicious of Iggy from the start.

So basically shore up those on the right-wing of the Tory party, and alienate everyone else. I guess they have already lost the next election when they start stuff like this. Might as well have a campaign slogan "Don't vote for Ignatief - he's smarter than you ... or us".

 

[Epi]

So basically shore up those on the right-wing of the Tory party, and alienate everyone else. I guess they have already lost the next election when they start stuff like this. Might as well have a campaign slogan "Don't vote for Ignatief - he's smarter than you ... or us".

Well I still think that generally people aren't angry enough with the Conservatives to actually vote the Libs in as a majority. I think it would be hard for the Libs to even be a minority, unless the Conservatives have some major missteps or Iggy shows some really awesome plans that can fix this country.

The Liberals have a LOT of ground to make up from the disaster that was the previous election, and not enough has happened yet to change their fortunes.

 

[kEiThZ]

I think the Liberals will do well this round. A lot of moderate/centrist voters are starting to get impatient with Harper's constant campaigning (and consequently avoidance of governing). For me personally, Iggy is so much better than Dion. I like the fact that he's an outsider. Not one of the old guard. That's helped to renew the Liberal Party. Today it's the Conservatives who are starting to look stale and the attack ads don't help. The remind me a lot of the Liberal attack ads (of the Stephen Harper will put troops in your streets variety), which only made the Liberal party look ridiculous at the time.

 

[afransen]

Gandhi: He's just in it for himself.

 

[nfitz]

Well I still think that generally people aren't angry enough with the Conservatives to actually vote the Libs in as a majority. I think it would be hard for the Libs to even be a minority, unless the Conservatives have some major missteps or Iggy shows some really awesome plans that can fix this country.

Tory support has collapsed in Quebec - they are running at 9%, down from 22% in the election ... they were running at 14% in Quebec in 1993 when they were wiped out to 2 seats nationally. I'm not sure there will be a Liberal majority - but I can't see how there will be a Tory minority, given their Ontario support is also down below that of the Liberals (only 32% in Ontario compared to 42% for the Liberals).

 

[toraerach]

I think the Liberals will do well this round. A lot of moderate/centrist voters are starting to get impatient with Harper's constant campaigning (and consequently avoidance of governing). For me personally, Iggy is so much better than Dion. I like the fact that he's an outsider. Not one of the old guard. That's helped to renew the Liberal Party. Today it's the Conservatives who are starting to look stale and the attack ads don't help. The remind me a lot of the Liberal attack ads (of the Stephen Harper will put troops in your streets variety), which only made the Liberal party look ridiculous at the time.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. His being away from the country for so long means that unlike a lot of Liberals he doesn't carry the same baggage like the NEP, Sponsorship, Chretien-Martin infighting. To me it seems as if his talk of national projects hearkens back more to a Pearson/Centennial-era way of thinking that might appeal to Canadians (especially Ontarians) fed up with regional bickering. I still won't vote for the Liberals, but that's due to their policies, not silly things like how long the leader's been out of the country.

 

[kEiThZ]

^ Exactly. I was fed up with Liberal corruption towards the end of the Martin era and their leftward drift under Dion but I can't find fault with Iggy. And his idea of nation building is far more appealing than Harper turning the federal government into the 'head waiter to the provinces'. Barring some seriously goofy campaing promises, I think the Harvard professor will get my vote this time around.

If I were the Liberals I would put out ads comparing and constrasting Iggy's academic performance with Harper (ie I maybe foreign but the other guy is a dullard) and Harper's equally deplorable French accent and all his lovely views of la belle province before he became PM.