Conservative ads shatter McGuinty

Already the ads of both the Liberals and Tories are sounding like a broken record.
However, the pitiful marketing of pitiful political products will go on for a whole month. The assumption seems to be that most people will spend little or no time learning about issues in any detail so that to influence votes the same techniques must be used as to sell breakfast cereals or any other product in the market place. It is not that there is no information provided it is just that the info is secondary and the assumed emotive effect primary. McGuinty did break promises. The Conservatives do support funding faith based schools but there are lots of other issues and even these issues are covered through emotive laden ads with limited cognitive content.

McGuinty 'shattered' by Tories as TV ad war begins
While NDP spot also attacks him, Liberals' spotlight premier

Don Butler
The Ottawa Citizen


Wednesday, September 12, 2007


The first wave of Ontario election television ads is out, and their messages echo the themes the parties have tried to establish in the campaign's opening days.

The Progressive Conservative ads are all about Premier Dalton McGuinty's broken promises. The Liberal ads cast Mr. McGuinty as a sturdy bulwark against the Tory promise to extend public funding to private religious schools. And the sole NDP ad focuses on Liberal policies it says have hurt working Ontarians.

The four 30-second Conservative ads, which started running yesterday, highlight Mr. McGuinty's broken promises on taxes, the environment, autistic children and crime.

All open with a black-and-white image of Mr. McGuinty. As an announcer enumerates each broken promise, text appears, then shatters with the sound of breaking glass.

The image of Mr. McGuinty then shatters as well as the announcer intones: "Dalton McGuinty -- promises made, promises broken." That's followed by a colour image of PC leader John Tory, with the words: "Ontario doesn't need more broken promises. It needs John Tory. Because leadership does matter."

In a clear appeal to angst about crime in the critical Toronto area, one ad declares that Mr. McGuinty promised to build safe communities. "But last year in Toronto seven out of 10 people charged with murder were out on bail or probation when those murders were committed," it adds.

The four Liberal ads, released Monday, zero in on what party strategists have clearly decided is the Conservative weak spot: Mr. Tory's promise to spend $400 million to fund private religious schools.

Two of the ads -- a 90-second spot and another 30-second commercial -- focus exclusively on the issue. Another 90-second spot extensively reprises the message.

All four Liberal ads feature Mr. McGuinty speaking directly into the camera, concluding each with a rictus smile.

In the main education spot, he begins by recalling the sorry state of the province's schools when his party took office in 2003. Since then, he says, classroom sizes have dropped, test scores have risen, more students are staying in school and "peace and stability" have returned to the education system.

However, he continues, "our schools are threatened anew. I believe that taking half a billion dollars out of those public schools to fund private religious schools is a mistake.

"Our public schools are a shining example to the world, filled with children of different religions, culture and languages. It's our public schools that make Ontario Ontario." Those lines, or ones similar, appear in two other ads as well.

In a fourth commercial, Mr. McGuinty touts other family-friendly policies, including expanded inoculations for children and prenatal testing for genetic disorders, smaller class sizes, increased college and university enrolment and "more than 300,000 new jobs."

The NDP ad also features Mr. McGuinty, but in a less flattering guise.

As the premier's disembodied smiling face stares out from the screen, yellow sticky notes enumerating various Liberal sins attach around his head.

"When Dalton McGuinty's Liberals were elected, it didn't take them long to forget the voters who put them in office," an off-screen voice declares, listing working families, children, students and seniors among the forgotten.

"But they remembered to give themselves a big pay increase," the voice sneers, as a final note, reading "$40,000 pay hike" obscures what's left of the premier's face.

"Dalton was hoping his record wouldn't stick to him," the NDP message concludes. "You can tell him he's wrong. Don't get mad. Get orange."

As well as the party ads, a union-backed group known as Working Families has been running anti-Conservative television ads for several weeks.

They remind voters of conditions under Mike Harris and note how things have improved since the Liberals took office.

Though spokesmen for Working Families insist the group is not affiliated with any political party, the Conservatives claim its "directing minds" are Liberal activists and donors.

PC party president Blair McCreadie has asked Ontario's chief electoral officer to investigate the link and include Working Families' advertising expenses -- more than $4 million according to one report -- as expenses incurred by the Liberal party.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tory can claim one dubious distinction: the video snippet in which he jokingly refers to the University of Ottawa as "U of Zero" has been viewed by more than 6,000 people online. That makes it the most-viewed Ontario election video on YouTube, according to tracking by a team at Ryerson University.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007