Another glut of new ads was released over the past couple of days; let’s go through them.
This ad, warning of a so-called “iPod tax,” is pure fiction. There is no such thing. It’s a straw man that has been repeatedly disproven. And yet they continue to bang on about it, apparently with the hope that people will have emotional gut reactions and won’t pay attention to facts. (Sadly, that may actually be true.)
They’ve also posted this ad only in Quebec. (I’ve posted an annotated and subtitled version from an anti-Conservative site, simply because it was subtitled.) The ad plays into the populist, xenophobic tendencies that Conservatives hope to exploit in Quebec with dire warnings of “backdoor immigration.” This is something a bit more blatant than their “tough on human smuggling” points, which are a part of their English-language ads, but it still panders to the same sentiment.
This Liberal ad, I suspect, is online for only two reasons – one is the 45-second length, and the other is that it sports the “Ditch Harper” tagline rather than “Vote Liberal.” It repeats all of the G8/G20 spending talking points, has visual cues as to the civil liberties violations that took place and brings up the auditor general’s condemnation of what happened (and did so with a very fast turnaround time). Also, could we please stop using “gravy train?” Thanks!
The final ad is a classic attack ad, complete with Harper’s quotes taken from a decade ago. While the Liberals continue their commitment to not attack Harper personally, it is still a negative turn that they’ve largely (although not completely) avoided throughout the first couple of weeks of the campaign.
Why you can trust Xtra
