2006 Liberal Party of Canada election ads


In the 2006 federal election in Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada used attack ads against Conservative Party of Canada leader Stephen Harper. The Liberals, trailing in polls during the last weeks of the campaign, resorted to strong and often questionable negative ads directed towards the Conservative party, by attempting to depict Harper as an extreme right-wing politician. The advertisements were generally seen as excessive, and failed to prevent a Conservative victory.

The ads

These 30 second attack ads were produced and aired by the Liberal Party. All featured a close-up picture of Stephen Harper with the sound of war drums beating. The ads focused on some comments from Harper's past and the Conservative platform. Most of these assertions were derided by the Canadian public and media. Several articles, including one by Paul Wells of Maclean's magazine, indicated that the Liberals were grasping at straws, and that not all of the comments could be proven.
The ads ended with a voice stating the Liberal campaign slogan, "Choose Your Canada".

Soldiers ad

By far the most controversial ad was the following:
"Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities. Canadian cities. Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up."
This ad was never broadcast as an ad on television. It appeared on the Liberal Party of Canada website, before being widely replayed in the news media. This drew widespread criticism from commentators that the Liberals were scaremongering, seeming to suggest that the Conservatives wanted to use the military against Canadian civilians. The ad was then pulled from the website.

Parodies

Due the melodramatic nature of the ads, they became ripe for Internet parody and found their way into the satire of popular culture. Some were later reprinted in The Globe and Mail and National Post newspapers. The comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce also created a series of parodies of the attack ads. Even the American comedy The Daily Show ran its own parody of the ads, with anti-Canadian rhetoric.
Some of the more famous examples that were printed in the National Post were: