Attack ads backlash claims victim
Sponsor of anti-Trudeau ads resigns from C.D. Howe board
Former small-business lobbyist Catherine Swift resigned suddenly from the board of a conservative think-tank Monday after another group she leads launched a pair of highly partisan election-style radio ads attacking Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
The C.D. Howe Institute announced Swift’s departure in a press release which quoted her citing its “impeccable record of non-partisanship.”
“My new projects make it advisable for me to step down as a Board member,” she said.
The announcement came hours after the Citizen noted Swift’s position with C.D. Howe and her involvement in Working Canadians, a non-profit group that advocates against the political influence of labour unions.
Earlier Monday, Working Canadians unveiled two radio ads critical of Trudeau. One focuses on his personal wealth and privilege, contrasted against his vows to help the middle class, while the other targets his decision to accept speaking fees from charities when he was an MP but before he became party leader. The ad also accuses Trudeau of racking up one of the worst attendance records in the House of Commons.
“You and I give to charities; Justin Trudeau takes from them,” the ad says.
“Can someone who has never had to worry about money or a job possibly understand those who do?” the other spot asks, concluding, “Trudeau: He doesn’t understand middle-class families and he never will.”
Swift, who is best known as a longserving chair of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, was due to leave the board after a meeting later this week at the end of her term. But the C.D. Howe Institute said Monday that her resignation was effective immediately.
In an interview before her resignation was announced, Swift declined to reveal the identities of Working Canadians’ donors who funded the radio ads, saying she feared they could be subject to retaliation by organized labour.
“They’re very intimidating and intimidation works,” Swift said. Some unions have been known to threaten families of opponents, she said, calling this “a big downside” to making public the names of contributors who helped put the radio ads on the air.
Hassan Yussuff, head of the Canadian Labour Congress, an umbrella group representing unions, said through a spokesperson that Swift’s comments are “not worthy of a response.”
Like the federal Conservatives, Swift’s group is concerned that labour unions, such as Unifor, will spend heavily on partisan advertising in the run-up to the 2015 election, as they did in the 2014 Ontario provincial election by targeting Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak, chiefly with radio ads.
“We just feel there is a need for a voice to counter that of labour unions that have been getting highly politicized,” Swift said. “We’re trying to represent the other side of that discussion.”
Swift allowed that the Trudeau ads didn’t directly deal with organized labour issues that concern Working Canadians but said the Liberals’ recent economic policy proposals need to be countered.
“It is very much a union agenda type of platform,” she said. “He has put out more tangible things like taking the TFSA (tax-free savings account) limit back and the socalled tax-the-rich policy.”
The $15,000 radio campaign was funded through donations from small businesses that include, Swift says, some she used to deal with in her former role as chair of CFIB, as well as donations from the public.
Were the ads to run after the official start of the fall election campaign, the group would be considered a third-party advertiser and would be required by Elections Canada to publish a list of contributors. The group’s ad spending would be capped at $150,000. But because the ads run outside the writ period, there are no limits on spending or disclosure requirements.
Asked why her group aimed its first pre-election volley at Trudeau and not at NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, who has much closer union ties, Swift promised there would be more ads coming.
She says Working Canadians is run by a board of three: her; Gisele Lumsden, who is also a part-time employee of CFIB; and Bill Tufts, author of a book that contends public sector pensions will financially ruin Canadian governments.
The group doesn’t have any official members, Swift said.
Though it tends to advocate a small-c conservative view, C.D. Howe Institute strives to be nonpartisan in its critiques of public policy.
Former C.D. Howe chairman Bill Morneau left the organization suddenly last year after delivering a highly partisan attack on the Conservative government’s economic record at the Liberal biennial convention in Montreal.
At the time, Morneau was said to be considering running for the Liberals but had yet to declare. He later became the Liberal candidate in Toronto Centre. His speech in Montreal accusing the Tories of “partisan politics of the very worst kind” appeared to catch the C.D. Howe people off-guard.
Shortly after, C.D. Howe president and CEO William Robson announced that Morneau was stepping down, saying he “understands the critical importance of non-partisanship, and is doing the right thing by stepping down.”