MPS take a stand for decency

This is an edited excerpt from an editorial this week in the Edmonton Journal:

It’s good news for voters that a growing number of Conservative MPs are refusing to play along with their party’s latest attack ads on Justin Trudeau, at least when it comes to mail-outs to their constituents. The next federal election may still be two years away but that hasn’t stopped Conservative party operatives from rolling out a comprehensive marketing campaign targeting the purported inadequacies of the newly minted Liberal leader. Tory MPs recently received a sample of a constituency flyer, designed by the party’s parliamentary research group, that is nothing more than an extension of recent television spots discrediting Trudeau’s experience and judgment to govern. Alberta MPs Brent Rathgeber, Laurie Hawn and Kevin Sorenson are among several Conservatives from across the country who have said this week that they won’t be using the mail-out. It’s not their style — they find it inappropriate. Some of them have said that’s a view they have picked up from voters back home and also perhaps from an anti-bullying consensus that seems to be gaining strength across the land.

If we can set aside questions about the propriety of using taxpayer-funded constituency flyers for purely partisan purposes, this modest display of a reluctance to smear should serve as a welcome elixir for the body politic.

Character assassination may be the crack cocaine of political campaigning but it’s a cheap buzz that inevitably poisons the democratic base. Voters have grown tired of it. And quite apart from the morality of attack ads, there’s no clear indication that they even work. The research on the matter is all over the map. In any case, as Trudeau has said himself, Canadians deserve better.