Canadians do not have to be told how many millions of taxpayer dollars the Conservatives are spending on promoting themselves for re-election this fall. And they are doing it because they can. The same unethical, foolish waste of taxpayer money was going on during previous Liberal governments in Ottawa. Maybe not as well, nor as studied, nor as blatant but only the Conservatives and New Democrats were complaining about it back then.
But you have to face the fact that there is nobody more short-sighted than a politician. What works for you today is what counts. All the rest is theory.
One of the best examples of this short-sightedness was when the McGuinty Liberals at Queen’s Park brought in stringent advertising rules and controls for Ontario. They had just replaced the embarrassment of Mike Harris and his Conservatives in the province and the new law was considered to be fair. It is so fair that the Wynne Liberals of today are trying to sneak through changes in the law to let them do some partisan advertising.
They are jealous of the ability of the Conservatives in Ottawa to promote programs before they have even been approved by parliament. When you use your parliamentary majority to bully the opposition instead of discussing your bills, why would there be any changes? The Conservatives have replaced parliamentary government with arrogance.
But if you recognize that the Government “Action Plan” advertising is just more blatant propaganda for the Conservatives, you are probably not the target audience. You have to realize that there might just be a small percentage of Canadians who are not as smart as you. They might be impressed with the ads and think positively about that government that is doing all these nice things (or going to?)
The cold hard facts of elections are that a surprisingly small number of voters really make the decision for all of us. And they might not be the brightest bulbs on the Canadian Christmas tree. These are people convinced by slogans, led by lies, who think Stephen Harper is a brilliant economist and that the Conservative party has our best interests at heart.
These are voters who are attracted by the rich chocolate icing on the cake. They are not aware that the cake inside is just plain old conservative vanilla.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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