French Tory Ads Hit Their Target

The French Ads are out and they are effective. They aren’t cheesy like the English ones.

The English Ads were outright lies. Stephane Dion is a leader. That’s what it says at the bottom of the TV Screen every time he is on the news. You can argue Dion is a bad leader. That point, at least, is debatable. I would still disagree. Dion is a good leader who made some bad decisions and, flush with cash, the Tories have pounced.

The Tory ads hit the Liberal Party where it hurts in Quebec, memories of sponsorship, the tired old Liberal Party, and most damaging, the fiscal imbalance.

They have one message and it’s directed at the collapsing Bloc support, telling them that the Liberal Party has not changed since it got booted from office.

Are the ads valid?

There is one main premise of the Conservative ads.

The Liberal Party has not renewed.

While the Dionistas may call Stephane Dion a fresh face, Dion is VERY WELL known in Quebec. He is known for his brave battles with the separatists and for the smear job they did on him afterwards.

Renewal would involve coming clean with the mistakes we made while we were in government. That would involve recognizing that the cuts we made in 1995 had reverberations that caused a health care crisis, a drastic rise in tuition, crumbling infrastructure (Walkerton, Concorde overpass). The cuts were necessary but when we were flush with cash merely 4 years later, we chose not to act. We cut taxes by 100 billion instead.

On the environment, Jean Chretien ratified Kyoto on his way out and then left Paul Martin and Co. to figure out how it was gonna happen. We made priorities but never followed through on them. Yes, Stephane, it is not easy to make priorities. It is even harder to follow through on them.

There were candidates out there who wanted the Liberals to move forward and face these problems head on. Face the fiscal imbalance. Face the Quebec. Renew the party by taking what we did well and build on top of that, and coming to terms with what we did wrong, and fixing it.

There were those who held on to relics of the past, some from 30 years ago, those who believed that Quebec had not changed since 1968, those who call us nationalists 19th century and outdated, those who believed that the 13 year Liberal reign was flawless, and thought sponsorship was our only problem. If it ain’t broke, they said, why fix it?

In the end the past won 54% to 46%.

In the meantime, the Bloc Quebecois and the separatist movement are facing a confidence crisis. Both parties are in the low 30s in the polls as Quebecers see that there is a place for the new Quebec identity in the Canadian federation, that Quebecers are stronger within Canada, as equals, than they are all by themselves.

Some are only interested in fighting the old battles, telling nationalists to pipe down, telling Quebec that they are simply a province, one like the others, that recognizing their identity would harm the Canadian identity. The Conservatives are waging their fight on a whole new battlefield.

Their slogan, Avec les Conservateurs, le Quebec prend des forces, with the Conservative Party, Quebec gains strength, might as well be the PLQ campaign slogan because the message is exactly the same. In fact, the slogan behind Harper and Charest yesterday in Sherbrooke “Agir Ensemble” was the 1997 Liberal slogan in Quebec.

I wont bitch that the Tories are stealing our slogans and our policy because it becomes really hard to paint them as crazy right wing people when our main attack against them is they are passing Liberal policy. Not so scary after all are they?

I guess we have to get our act together and come to terms with our mistakes in order to come up with real solutions. I guess it really was broke…oops! There is still time to fix it.