This message brought to you by fed-up taxpayers

You have to hand it to politicians: when it comes to sheer gall, they can’t be matched.

Wise men say you always remember your first kiss, your first job and your first grey hair. Well, I’m adding a fourth line item — those relentless ads Stephen Harper’s merry lot foisted upon us each day from every angle for year upon year. Yep, remember those Economic Action Plan dirges?

Proving that, while they differ in policy, they don’t differ in spending taxpayers’ money, along comes our saintly crew of Alberta New Democrats, who are happily spending more than $5 million promoting another action plan, this one on climate change. Honestly, I’d vote for any party if they promised an Inaction Plan.

Still, so far, I think the Notley-inspired epic stands a better Oscar chance than Harper’s ever did — the cute lass watering her roof is a nice touch — but that’s probably because, so far, they’ve just reached the annoying stage. Check back in six months to see if the “rather have a root canal” line has indeed been reached.

Oh, and now the New Democrats are merrily off spending another $100,000 of our money explaining why an Alberta government is essentially suing itself over power contracts. Try squeezing that into a 30-second TV spot. Maybe the guy doing those Brick ads for many a decade is free for the voice-over.

So when it comes to spending our money on advertising, they’re equal opportunity glad-handers. Using the guise of informing the hoi polloi about supposedly essential government business, they’ll chuck all sorts of vague garbage in there that, in reality, amounts to nothing more than a party political broadcast — except it’s the taxpayer who pays for this guff. Yet this is where it gets strangely interesting. Suddenly, the Alberta NDP wants to limit advertising spending by political parties during an election campaign to the somewhat paltry sum of $1.6 million.

Gung-ho Calgary-Shaw MLA Graham Sucha has forwarded a motion to that effect, saying it’s about “getting big money out of politics.” You wonder what our boy Graham thinks about the lass on her roof watering the grass?

So here we have a party that wants to limit the amount outfits can spend of their own money, yet has no problem spending taxpayers’ dough — $5 million and counting — on ads that don’t impart any true information necessary to Albertans.

And, you may ask, what could such relevant information be?

How about an ad campaign to announce that no longer will you get a reminder in the mail that your vehicle registration is due. In a bid to save money, the government axed that. So when the police officer pulled me over and gave me a $300 ticket because my plate was out of date, the question crossed both our minds.

“They want to save $3 million,” that particular member of Calgary’s finest told me, without a warning bone in his body. After trudging down to the nearest registry office, the sympathetic clerk said a similar sorry trail of fellow sufferers had appeared before her that month.

Now that, I would argue, is worth a $500,000, one-time advertising campaign, saving six times that sum in the first year and the full amount onward.

But nah, that’s just too relevant from a government busily changing policy. There’re no votes in that, no fancy action plan in play.

So this blather about keeping big money out of politics is ludicrous. People and parties can spend their own money when and where they want. If supporters are daft enough to give it to politicians in the first place, then so be it.

Instead of limiting what individuals or groups can donate or spend, it would be wiser to curtail what governments of any stripe spend on advertising. Let them prove it’s information we need and not just a poorly veiled party political broadcast for which we all must sadly shell out.

Honestly, I’d vote for any party if they promised an Inaction Plan