Ontario voters, be prepared for the nastiest election yet
At breakfast early last week I was appalled to hear a political attack ad air on a popular Toronto radio station.
No, it wasn’t a leftover ad from the federal election.
Instead, just 14 days after the federal contest, the ad was the first of what I fear will be a wave of nasty political attacks leading up to the Ontario provincial election on June 2, 2022 — more than eight months from now.
The ad from Doug Ford’s Conservatives was aimed at convincing listeners they shouldn’t vote for Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca because he had been former premier Kathleen Wynne’s “right-hand man” at Queen’s Park.
A second Tory ad attacked NDP Leader Andrea Horwath as a politician who “says one thing and does another.”
I soon came across two NDP ads, one blasting Ford as being “Here for his buddies, not for you,” and the other targeting Del Duca, a former defeated Liberal cabinet minister, as being “Back for power. Not for you.”
I was appalled because the ads are clear signs of two disturbing developments that should concern all voters.
First, the coming provincial election seems destined to become the nastiest provincial election in history, with TV screens, radio airwaves and social media outlets filled with sleazy personal attacks on party leaders.
Second, provincial politics are now following the path of our federal politics in adopting the worst of American politics, with never-ending, negative campaigns that drag politics through the mud and increase voter disgust.
What’s prompting this early wave of attack ads is the belief among all parties that the coming election will be extremely tight.
Currently, polls indicate the Conservatives hold a slight lead over both the NDP and Liberals, who are closely bunched.
But NDP and Liberal strategists believe Ford is vulnerable, given that his approval rating has dropped from a high of 69 per cent in March, 2020, to just 36 per cent, according to a survey conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct. 3 by the non-profit Angus Reid Institute.
They say they are not surprised the Tories launched their ads at this time. That’s because parties can spend all the money they want until early November, at which time campaign spending rules tightly limit expenditures right up to election day.
The overall result is that Ontario voters have never seen, heard or read so many negative ads so early in a campaign. Such ads usually appear later in a race when voters are deciding who to support.
A Liberal strategist this week dismissed the impact of the Tory and NDP ads, claiming there’s “very little appetite” to see or hear political leaders “slagging” each other.
In reality, though, elections are as much about image as they are about policy — and negative ads play a prominent role in shaping image.
Until recently, politicians targeted by negative ads were advised to ignore them in the belief that such ads would actually backfire and damage the attacker.
But the thinking now is that attack ads cannot be ignored.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper was the undisputed champion in using attack ads.
He loved to run negative ads all the time, not just during an official election period — and he did it with remarkable success.
Just ask Michael Ignatieff. Almost from the moment Ignatieff became Liberal leader in 2008, Harper launched a series of tough ads portraying his rival as a globe-trotting dilettante who had spend 34 years outside of the country and was “just visiting” Canada.
Ignatieff opted to ignore the ads, a disastrous decision that gave Harper the power to define him, which was tantamount to political suicide.
Clearly, Ford has adopted Harper’s tactics wholeheartedly.
Just as clearly Del Duca may be risking the same fate as Ignatieff if he insists on ignoring the current ads branding him as the unpopular Wynne’s “right-hand man,” who is only looking out for himself.
In the coming days, the Liberals plan to launch a series of “positive” ads.
They’ll be a nice change, but don’t expect them to last long as Ontario descends into what’s shaping up as the most negative provincial election ever.