The NDP ignores Trudeau, the CPC one is mainly about him.  The Dipper spot tries to be positive, the CPC spot is less preoccupied with all that, but isn’t very mean.  The Liberal one, appended at the end? It’s okay.

All three, however, strongly suggest the election campaign is underway.

First, Team Orange:

 

• It’s not bad, but it isn’t particularly great, either. You forget about it a minute after you watch it.
• The visuals are the kind of stuff political backroomers love – working classy, ethnic diverse-ness, slice of life, blah blah blah. Not original.
• The soundtrack riff is a direct steal from the Menzingers’ ‘The Obituaries,’ which features the “F” word about a million times.
• At the end, you can see they struggled with what to do with what to do with Angry Tom. Tie? No tie? Tie loosened? Jacket? No jacket, sleeves? No jacket, sleeves rolled up? Hmm.
• In the end, his look and demeanour and surroundings reminded me of Assistant Principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club. Not good.

The Blue Crew, meanwhile, have leaked their latest offering…but no one has a link except John Ivison. Interesting strategy.

Anyway, what John tells us about the ad reflects what many hacks already know about the research: no one dislikes Justin Trudeau – it’s just that no one thinks he’s ready to be Prime Minister. (In focus groups, anyway.)

The structure of the ad – diverse group of Canadians passing judgment on the Liberal leader – recalls the Muttart-era “Entitled to my entitlements” diner spot, which was seared on our collective consciousness through a gazillion repetitions back in 2005-2006.

The Harper part sounds like what I had figured would always be his 2015 writ narrative: “Hey, look. They said I’d wreck the place, and do all kinds of radical stuff, and I didn’t. We got through some tough times, we’re keeping folks safe. Oh, and Justin? I like him, too. He’s just not ready.”

If anyone gets a link, please send along. I couldn’t find it anywhere (beyond John’s column, that is). But I suspect that, when I see it, my assessment won’t change too much.

UPDATE: And here it is! (Thanks, folks.)

My take:

• These guys love research! The statements made by the actors in this ad are taken directly from actual statements made by actual Canadians in actual focus groups!
• Actually, when you are assessing the ad for yourself, keep that in mind – this may not be what you are saying, but it is what your neighbors are saying. Important.
• I think the ad will work.  Expect to see it in heavy rotation, boys and girls!

UPDATER: Um, oops.

UPDATEST: And here is the Liberal ad. Same sort of diversity/middle class/family stuff we see in the other ones. Not bad, but not great.

Comments (65)

Photo (and apparently untouched) by @karltims.

Comments (7)

Right here. And it’s real. 

What a genius. 

Comments (5)

That’s right, pedophilia. In their April issue, Sears and his fellow neo-Nazis published an article that made light of the sexual abuse of children. By any reasonable standard, that’s a crime. Why isn’t Canada Post – or the government that oversees it – doing something about this?

From the Canadian Jewish News, today:

“Warren Kinsella, a lawyer and author of Web of Hate, a look at the extremist right in Canada, said he and other residents of the east end have started a website called www.Canadiansagainstprejudice.com to oppose the message of the newsletter.

The site lists Your Ward News advertisers and asks if they know what kind of newsletter they are supporting.
Kinsella said he has been in touch with Canada Post, which continues to be paid to distribute the magazine, despite examining its content. “They don’t seem to care at all,” he said.

Canada Post did not respond to a query prior to The CJN’s deadline, but the Toronto Star quoted a Canada Post spokesperson as saying that Your Ward News did not meet the standard for “non-mailable matter.”

Comments (6)

Comments (39)

Comments (1)

Story here.

The cops will do what they do. In the meantime, those of us who live in the community aren’t going to wait. 

If you want to help us, email me at wkinsella@hotmail.com. 

Comments (5)

…which, by the by, is indeed a subversive, seductive, smart feminist action film. And all the better because of it. 

I love this little car. It wouldn’t last long on the journey across the Mad Max wasteland, but it would look awesome as we did so. 

             Beep beep. I love my yellow Beetle, I do…

Comments (5)

Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Member from the riding of Den Tandt has caused to be published the following:

“There is one obvious way for Trudeau to leap this ditch, though it carries risk…He could speak repeatedly and off the cuff with authenticity and wit, scrumming until reporters are tired of the sound of his voice. All summer long, he could wade into town halls and other unscripted settings, giving the lie to the most damaging point in the narrative prepared for him by his opponents, which is that he’s in over his head.”

Mr. Speaker, with the greatest of respect to the Honourable Member, that is a proven formula for disaster.  The only people who will approve of this strategy, Mr. Speaker, are the esteemed members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, who (a) are forever telling politicians to speak without notes (b) so that said politician will say something unhelpful, and the esteemed members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery will have more to write about.

Instead, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada needs to do ten things.  Here, Mr. Speaker, are those ten things.

1. Stop talking about the “middle class.” No one knows who the middle class is, but everyone knows Mr. Trudeau has never been part of the middle class.

2. Start talking about ideas.  Don’t wait until the writ period. The Tories and the Dippers repeatedly insist Mr. Trudeau has none, that he is an empty vessel.  Show voters that the Grit’s detractors are wrong.

3. The ideas need not be big.  They should, instead, be small.  No one believes anymore that government can solve big problems – so talk about smart, solid, smallish ideas that seem do-able.  Talk about things we can and should change.

4. Look, and sound, older.  Mr. Trudeau looks and sounds too young to be Prime Minister. His voice needs to be deeper; his style of dress, less stylish; his deportment, more statesmanlike.

5. We re-emphasize point 4. Barack Obama knew that what middle America fears most is the Angry Black Man – so he built a successful political career on never being the Angry Black Man.  Canadian voters, similarly, wonder if Mr. Trudeau is Richie Rich – too young, too callow, too well-off, etc. Mr. Trudeau needs to play against type.

6. Undersell and over perform: it is the Chretien maxim.  Whenever Team Trudeau come up with a good idea, senior staff rush to claim credit for it in anonymous insider stories.  Whenever something bad happens, they whisper to the media that their boss had “gone off the script.” These things need to be reversed: if something bad happens, it is staff’s fault.  Something good? Mr. Trudeau thought of it.

7. Stop answering hypothetical questions.

8. Stop advertising strategy in the newspapers, too, Mr. Speaker. If you do that, your opponent will read all about your strategy in the morning paper, gratis, and use it to beat you on Election Day.

9. Reach out to Liberals who are past the age of 40.  The Liberal Party of Canada used to be the most successful political machine in Western democracy – and those older folks were the principal reason for that.  Reach out to them.  They have some useful perspectives to offer.

10. Don’t throw away the script. Don’t, Mr. Speaker.  The Prime Minister taunted Mr. Trudeau about “the script” because he, along with the Press Gallery, want the Liberal leader to talk first, and think later.  Don’t do it.

Simply talk about smart, do-able ideas, over and over. Don’t talk about the hypothetical things that the media and the Tories and the Dippers want you to talk about. Talk about ideas, and how to make a great country even greater. Sound and look a grown-up when you do it.  Fire any staff who appear in “strategist” profile stories: those staffers don’t have their names on the ballot, Mr. Trudeau does.

Be humble.  Be sincere. Always tell the truth, and only talk about what you know.  In that way, you can never go wrong.

And prepare, prepare, prepare – but make it sound like it all comes effortlessly from your heart, and your head.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.  Vive le Canada.

Comments (46)

Some say the material is anti-Semitic and racist. So why is Canada Post distributing it?

The publication is called “Your Ward News.” It has been distributed in Toronto for quite some time, and has always been on the fringes, promoting conspiracy theories and oddball political candidates. But, in recent months, the tabloid newspaper has veered sharply Right, and started promoting material that may offend Canadian hate laws.

Among the highlights contained in recent editions of the newspaper:

• Editorials railing against Jewish postal workers, “ZioMarxists,” “parasites,” and what the paper’s editor calls “the illegitimate Zionist apartheid state of Israel that holocausts Palestinians.”
• Advertisements promoting something called the “New Constitution Party,” whose membership cards feature Nazi salutes, and references to “88” – neo-Nazi code for “HH,” or “Heil Hitler.”
• Articles promoting Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel, David Irving and Fred Leuchter – and denouncing “mainstream media lackeys” and “cattle” who sought to have Zundel charged with publishing Holocaust-denying propaganda.
• Articles promoting Holocaust denial and written by Gary Schipper, the former voice of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front, who now goes by the false name “Johnny Jensen.”
• A lengthy anti-Israel polemic describing the need for “Israeli Niggers to go home,” how the Jewish state “murders thousands” every year, that Zionists are “ZioFascists” and racists, that Israel forcibly sterilizes non-white immigrant women and practices Nazi-style eugenics – and repeats the old canard that Jews are not “true Biblical Jews,” a theory favoured by neo-Nazis for decades.
• Articles promoting “white nationalism,” skinheads, and the defunct neo-Nazi Heritage Front, in which the author – who describes herself as a “white woman” who favours “white pride” – talks openly about how “white people reserve the right to protest the rape and disfiguration of our country” by non-whites, and calls the New Constitution Party a vehicle for opposing “Racial Marxism.”
• A letters column mocking Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne for her sexual orientation, and attacking “homos” and “queens” – and a related editorial calling Pride “a freak show on parade floats.”
• An advertisement decrying “lies that the ZioMarxist-controlled mainstream media is feeding you about Adolf Hitler” – and calling for Jews to be “deprogrammed from anti-German propaganda.”

And all of that is contained in just one issue of “Your Ward News.”

The publication is controlled by a man calling himself Dr. James Sears. But Sears is not an accredited doctor.

According to court transcripts and records of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Sears has a dark past. He drank while on call as an intern, made “inappropriate” use of drugs, and had “inappropriate behaviour towards female staff members.” While admitted to Ottawa’s National Defence Medical Centre, Sears made ”numerous, random and obsessive telephone calls to women during which he would sometimes masturbate.”

In 1991, the College of Physicians and Surgeons finally suspended Sear’s licence after receiving complaints from female patients. The next year, Sears would plead guilty to two counts of sexual assault and he would be stripped of his medical licence for sexual impropriety.

Along with publishing a newspaper that promotes anti-Semitic and racist themes, Sears also has billed himself as “Dimitri the Lover” – and has claimed he could teach men who attend his “Toronto Real Men” workshops that he can teach them to make women “worship” them.

But the question remains: why is Canada Post distributing his newspaper? Bernie Farber, the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, is among the many folks asking just that.

“The material in ‘Your Ward News’ is reminiscent of the neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic ravings of the now-defunct racist organization Heritage Front,” said Farber. “It’s frankly shocking that a federal government agency like Canada Post deems it appropriate to deliver this racist screed to Toronto households.”

Indeed it is. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has called the newspaper “hate mail.” But the corporation has merely shrugged, and said: “We do not have the right to refuse a mail item because we or our employees object to its content. The content is the sole responsibility of the publisher, who is clearly identified in the newsletter. Anyone who has concerns about the content should either contact the publisher or simply dispose of it.”

Bullshit. Your Ward News is hate propaganda – and Canada Post will pay a steep price for its indifference.

Comments (11)