There are 34 registered third party advertisers in the current Ontario election. In a perfect world, there would be none. There are more than enough lies emanating from the political parties involved in the election, why do we need more? Is the ability to pay the only criteria to allow people to try to influence the outcome of the election?
And, the truth be told, we should lump the pollsters in with the third party advertisers. They should all be banned and allow Ontario voters to listen to the politicians and make their own decisions.
Mind you there is one television commercial running that is probably the best political ad directed at Canadians we have ever seen. It is the one with hockey players in the background and stark red and black banners in the foreground. You never remember the advertiser’s name but it was certainly damning the Hudak PCs. That commercial should have been run by the Liberals instead of the insipid attack ads the party has been running.
Thankfully, it all ends tonight. You can prepare yourself for one final blast with the television news and then it is shut down. The day before election day and on election day itself, Ontario law forbids partisan advertising.
Whether pollsters are partisan is an ongoing argument. Some of them are certainly suspect. They usually start out the campaign with widely divergent views but come closer to the truth as it becomes apparent later in the campaign. It is particularly amusing to see the pollsters who at first assured you that the PCs where way out ahead of the pack change their minds later in the campaign. As things stand today, these early Tory supporters are hedging their bets and conceding a very close election.
It is when pollsters and third party advertisers work together that we really should suspect something. Telephone calls in Barrie yesterday were telling people that automated telephone surveys in that city show the Liberal candidate leading and the PC candidate second. The support was supposed to be 30 per cent to 28 per cent.
If that is the case in Barrie, we can expect a much larger Liberal majority for Ontario than we have already called. And the best news of all is that the Tories will be looking for a new leader as well as the New Democrats.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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