Harper bringing the SuperPAC model to Canada

CDNBear

Custom Troll
Sep 24, 2006
43,839
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Ontario
I notice you are not complaining about all the 3rd party anti-Harper ads.
Of course not. You're talking to someone who fully believes Harper is a Nazi.

Its getting really hard to not take you for a hypocrite lately.
Lately?

Question is should ALL third parties be banned from airing political ads?
No, so long as they attack only the cons.

How would you define political ads?
Pro con, bad. Pro anybody else, good.

Do you have any answers or want to engage in some discussion or are you just going to tell me to take a pill?
Already answered, lol.

And all is well and good as long as they only attack the conservatives?
In a word, which you should have already known, yes.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
39,817
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Jen Gerson: All right-minded Canadians must celebrate the demise of HarperPAC
National Post | Canadian News, Financial News and Opinion

All champions of freedom and democracy must herald the end of HarperPAC, a grave American-style threat to civil discourse in Canada. For an entire week, this pernicious entity — the genius creation of Stephen Taylor, the National Director of the National Citizens Coalition et al. — wreaked havoc on our airwaves with ads like this:

“After months of mistakes, Justin Trudeau’s poll numbers are free-falling. Canadians from coast to coast now think he is unfit to be prime minister … But who does Trudeau blame for his low poll numbers? He blames Canadian voters … Can we really trust him to make hard decisions as prime minister?”

Just imagine the horror, the inevitable consequences if such partisan aggression were to continue unchecked leading up to an election. Some voters might be persuaded to do one thing. Or another thing. The influence this PAC could wield would have been incalculable — beyond the $200,000 spending limit that would be imposed by law once the writ drops.

These “PACs,” these “Third Party Advertisers,” have an unparalleled grasp of Soundcloud, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The whole Internet is at their disposal. They are providing the very best, most persuasive content that a consumer-level Macbook and $129 worth of editing software can buy.

These people were not to be underestimated.

They were, after all, the very same troupe who spearheaded the Boycott Tims phenomenon. Somwhere, in Fort McMurray, a franchisee owner by the name of Tim McDuggen is out tens, maybe hundreds of dollars. Probably. We grieve for him. But he is the sad, inevitable casualty of the doughnut chain’s wholesale abandonment of our crucial oil and gas industry.

It’s been a heck of a week! Here’s an update on HarperPAC.pic.twitter.com/V0GgxiHmVZ

— Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor)June 26, 2015

And HarperPAC isn’t alone. There are handfuls of other third parties eager to sway you, dear Canadian voter, with their compelling, well-thought out ploys: Engage Canada, and that other one, Working Something Something.

But HarperPAC was the worst of them. It’s a PAC that is not a PAC, because we don’t have PACs — or Political Action Committees — in Canada. They have PACS in America though. And America is so opposed to useful regulations, so free, that they’re barely democratic at all. Therefore, we must cut this nefarious outgrowth from the south from our political system, stem and root.

That’s not our culture. Canada is a country of polite and civil political commentary. We need a return to the gentlemanly days of yore, when men were men, and political parties made their own attack ads. The world could only improve if we stuck to making fun of Prime Ministers for the speech impediments caused by a childhood case of Bell’s Palsy, for example. Or claiming hidden agendas; that our leaders will flood the streets with soldiers. In Canada. Or perhaps just pointing out that the Liberals keep on choosing gormless leaders.

National Post

Jen Gerson: All right-minded Canadians must celebrate the demise of HarperPAC
 
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