Tory attacks against NDP getting little media traction
OTTAWA — With its two-week-long campaign targeting the NDP's shadow cabinet having largely fallen on deaf ears in the media, the Conservatives seem to be trying to up ante with the launch of a new attack website.
Still, despite its black-and-orange colour scheme, spooky fonts and disappearing slogans, Mulcair's NDP Team lacks the viciousness the Conservatives displayed toward adversaries in years past.
The fates of former Liberal opposition leaders Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff have long been attributed, at least in part, to the success of Conservative attack campaigns.
Few Canadians, for instance, can forget the viral Conservative slogans that portrayed Dion as "not a leader" and warned that Ignatieff "didn't come back for you."
But either the Tories have lost their knack for nastiness or their criticism of the new official Opposition simply isn't sticking.
While the NDP was preparing for character assassination against their leader before Thomas Mulcair was elected in March — they even released a series of ads early on aimed at defining him before their competitors could — the Tories have instead sought to knock NDP members off the party's front bench one by one.
The Conservatives have issued press releases almost daily, targeting Nathan Cullen on resource development, Brian Masse for endorsing the idea of a government-owned car manufacturer and Alexandre Boulerice for donating to the provincial Quebec Solidaire party, which has supported sovereignty.
The releases — dubbed "get to know Mr. Mulcair's NDP shadow cabinet" and issued by party spokesman Fred DeLorey — say the NDP's team "threatens dangerous economic experiments, job-killing taxes, and reckless spending we simply cannot afford."
"This team has demonstrated a disturbing willingness to put the interests of a narrow band of activists ahead of the interests of hard-working Canadian families.
"Mulcair's NDP have blocked reasonable measures to put the rights of victims first, fighting to defend a criminal justice system that privileges the rights of criminals at the public's expense. They have gone to great lengths to prevent responsible development of Canada's natural resources, going so far as to travel abroad to criticize their own country."
In each release, the Tories promise to continue showing Canadians how the NDP fails to "stand for the interests of everyday hard-working Canadian families."
The campaign has culminated in the new website — basically a repackaging of those news releases.
For all their efforts, the Conservative attacks have enjoyed little media coverage and the NDP hasn't batted an eye.
"This technique where they don't attack the leader, they attack our shadow cabinet. I don't know, I suppose it's maybe even a mark of respect from the Conservatives that they continue to highlight different members of our shadow cabinet in question period in their attacks but it's not a problem for us," Cullen said Tuesday.
"We're not going to be distracted away from our work, not at all."
Finance critic Peggy Nash recently noted that the issue of the "ridiculous attacks" hadn't come up at all in caucus.
"I think what Canadians expect is that in Parliament, we're going to be debating substantive issues and not just slinging attacks at each other," she said.
In response to a query shortly after the attacks began, Mulcair's principal secretary Karl Belanger called them "sad and pathetic" and noted they wouldn't "distract" the NDP from tackling the "real issues" of concern to Canadians.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2nvwjts.jpg
