Tories to start anti-BQ TV spots

[August1991]

According to Michel Auger, journalist at La Presse, the Tories have prepared a series of TV spots critical of the BQ and plan to run them, as they did with the Dion ads.

One shows a 15-year employee whose sole job is to open up the Suggestion Box.

Signe d’élections imminentes ou juste pour battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud, reste que le Parti conservateur préparerait une campagne de publicité négative destinée au Bloc québécois, un peu comme la campagne – assez efficace, au moins dans sa version anglaise – contre Stéphane Dion d’il y a quelques mois.

L’un des scénarios montre un employé qui est dans la même entreprise depuis 15 ans et qui n’a jamais rien fait d’autre que d’être en charge de la boîte à suggestions. On voit tout de suite le style…

Link

[blueblood]

According to Michel Auger, journalist at La Presse, the Tories have prepared a series of TV spots critical of the BQ and plan to run them, as they did with the Dion ads.

One shows a 15-year employee whose sole job is to open up the Suggestion Box.

Signe d’élections imminentes ou juste pour battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud, reste que le Parti conservateur préparerait une campagne de publicité négative destinée au Bloc québécois, un peu comme la campagne – assez efficace, au moins dans sa version anglaise – contre Stéphane Dion d’il y a quelques mois.

L’un des scénarios montre un employé qui est dans la même entreprise depuis 15 ans et qui n’a jamais rien fait d’autre que d’être en charge de la boîte à suggestions. On voit tout de suite le style…

Link

That's pretty damn risky, those had better be some good ads or else the tories are going to have some big problems on their hands.

[Michael Bluth]

That's pretty damn risky, those had better be some good ads or else the tories are going to have some big problems on their hands.

The Dion ads worked pretty well. Seems like the Conservatives are setting themselves up as the Federalist alternative to the Bloc.

[Vancouver King]

This latest round of ads is asking for trouble. It is one thing to skewer a Liberal leader before an Ontario audience and come away with a measure of success, it is quite another to mock a Quebecois political institution long associated by politically astute Quebecers, for better or for worse, as the chief defender of the province's generations-old struggle for increased autonomy.

[Who's Doing What?]

At some point the Canadian majority will get sick and tired of these attack ads. Most people I know are already sick of seeing political ads outside of an election campaign.

[Charles Anthony]

At some point the Canadian majority will get sick and tired of these attack ads.

This one seems like it is for the Quebec audience.

it is quite another to mock a Quebecois political institution long associated by politically astute Quebecers, for better or for worse, as the chief defender of the province's generations-old struggle for increased autonomy.

It might be risky but sovereignty is dying and Mario Dumont is now the "autonomy" flag bearer.

[Michael Bluth]

This one seems like it is for the Quebec audience.

More specifically a francophone Quebec audience. Unlike the Dion contrast ads there is no English version of these ads.

it is quite another to mock a Quebecois political institution long associated by politically astute Quebecers, for better or for worse, as the chief defender of the province's generations-old struggle for increased autonomy.

It might be risky but sovereignty is dying and Mario Dumont is now the "autonomy" flag bearer.

Seems like the self-proclaimed "politically astute" crowd isn't what Harper is shooting for.

Harper needs to take a risk. The poltiician who doesn't ake a risk ends up dithering by trying to please everybody. In the end he pleases no one.

[fellowtraveller]

I'm not sure why Harper is bothering, unless he wants to get a few more boots into Duceppes ribs before an election.

The BQ has taken a truly fearsome hammering in the last 18 months.

[Keepitsimple]

If you understand Harper's background, you would understand why he's running the ads. He's always felt that that the Liberals walked on eggshells around the Quebec issue, instead of confronting it by addressing their needs and giving them the facts. Quebec's goals were always at odds with the heavy centralist approach of the Liberals.....no different really than Alberta and to a lesser extent, BC and N & L. The PQ's downslide over the past year had a lot more to do with Harper's Open Federalism than it did with Boisclair - Quebeckers saw that Canada could work for them. So now we are on to Phase 2 - start giving them the facts and let them face the cold reality of how irrelevant the BQ has become. The ads will make Quebeckers talk among themselves and the more they talk, the more they will learn. You have to understand that for decades, it has been almost shameful to talk about Federalism in areas of Quebec where separatists were in the majority. These ads will accellerate an inter-Quebec dialogue - and that is what's been missing for too many years.

[Michael Bluth]

The ads will make Quebeckers talk among themselves and the more they talk, the more they will learn. You have to understand that for decades, it has been almost shameful to talk about Federalism in areas of Quebec where separatists were in the majority. These ads will accellerate an inter-Quebec dialogue - and that is what's been missing for too many years.

Well said.

With the BQ's fortunes on the wane there is a vacuum for a Federalist alternative. Conservative or Liberal?

At least these ads show Quebeckers where the Conservatives stand.

[jbg]

At some point the Canadian majority will get sick and tired of these attack ads. Most people I know are already sick of seeing political ads outside of an election campaign.

We get the privilege, in this country, of political advertising, 365/24/7. Clinton busted the election cycle that way.

[jbg]

I'm not sure why Harper is bothering, unless he wants to get a few more boots into Duceppes ribs before an election. The BQ has taken a truly fearsome hammering in the last 18 months.

My view is that the BQ should swing from traitor's ropes. How dare a political party dedicate itself to destruction of the country which it purports to serve.