The new session of Parliament is not even two weeks old, and already the party attack ads are in full swing.
Despite the fact that no one appears to really want a federal election, the Conservatives are on the offensive and have been for several weeks.
The Liberals followed that with their own attack ads, then the Conservatives fired back with two more ads in late January. These latest ads cut pretty deep to the bone and showed several out-of-context video clips of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff giving a speech to his caucus and suggested he wants a "needless election" and "job-killing taxes." The ads went viral pretty quickly and sparked major backlash against the Conservatives, who pulled the ads a day later.
And the attacks are not just through the main-stream television media, it appears.
In our riding of West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, Conservative MP John Weston and his Liberal opponent Dan Veniez have been locked in a bitter, back-and-forth exchange through letters to the editor to the riding's four newspapers and have had it out in news stories, one of which we are running on page 7 of today's edition.
Weston has gone on record stating that a spring election is unnecessary. He says anyone who wants to provoke an election isn't in it for the good of the country, but rather in the self-interest of trying to gain power.
Funny, I guess Weston's boss Prime Minister Stephen Harper disagrees. Why else would the Conservatives be running nasty attack ads - they were the first to do so - if they didn't want an election?
The Conservative ads use misleading quotations, half-truths, unflattering images, lurid colours and grainy footage. While the Conservatives seem bent on attacking Ignatieff himself, the Liberals are attacking the Conservative government on issues. Is this character assignation really necessary? Are the attack ads by both parties really necessary?
Political parties defend attack ads by saying that they do help get their messages out, but we are joining with many Canadians who are turning away from participating in the world of politics and debating the issues because the attack ads do nothing to help the cause. They drive voters away instead of engaging them in the things that matter - the issues. And if an election was called soon, the polls suggest all the Conservatives would get would be another minority government. Sure, a few different MPs might change in some ridings, but essentially we would be left with the same cards that are currently on the table.
Calling for an election is one thing, and not wanting one is another. But either way, let's bring some civility and maturity back to federal politics and debate the issues with some respect.
