PARLIAMENT HILL—A biting attack ad the country’s largest right-wing lobby group posted against Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae is prompting NDP and Liberal MPs to call for Parliamentary restrictions on money interest groups and political parties are allowed to spend on advertising to attack their opponents between election periods.Stephen Taylor, a conservative blogger and a director of the National Citizens Coalition, confirmed Tuesday the lobby group, once led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) when he left politics for several years before returning to eventually become Conservative Party leader, confirmed the organization posted the attack ad on You Tube as the Liberal Party convention wrapped up last weekend.
Mr. Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) had been the centre of much of the attention during the convention and leading up to it as questions swirled over whether he intends to become a candidate for the post of permanent Liberal leader, to be contested in a party-wide election early next year.
The ad, which had more than 5,200 viewers over three days as of late Tuesday, is a merciless and, Liberals say, exaggerated account of the economic and governmental problems Ontario experienced when Mr. Rae was NDP premier from 1990 to 1995.
“Bob Rae is back,” a woman’s voice warns darkly as the video opens, with Mr. Rae pictured prominently across the screen. “First, he was the job-killing NDP premier who threw Ontario into the worst recession since the dirty '30s. Now, he’s plotting to take over the Liberal Party.”
The ad goes on to blame Mr. Rae for raising Ontario gas taxes, bringing in controversial photo radar, and raising taxes on car tires, parking meters and even insurance premiums while he was premier. “When he was finally thrown out by voters, the economy was devastated," the woman's voice intones.
Liberal MP John McCallum (Markham, Ont.), a former bank economist before his election to the Commons in 2000, told The Hill Times the Citizens Coalition version is unfair, considering Mr. Rae took over as Ontario premier as the province—faced with soaring bank interest rates, the onset of a recession and a housing-market collapse—went into an economic spiral.
“In the first four years of his government, Stephen Harper increased spending by two and a half times more than Rae did in his four years as premier,” Mr. McCallum said. “So in terms of expenditures, as he has said himself, he looks like a piker compared with Harper. If Harper had to deal with the interest rates that Rae did, the deficit would be tens of billions of dollars worse today.”
Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough—Agincourt, Ont.), who openly supports the prospect of Mr. Rae entering the leadership race, said the attack by the National Citizens Coalition, with close past ties to Mr. Harper, suggests the group is supporting Mr. Harper indirectly in the way controversial Political Action Committees are currently involved in the Republican Party primary campaigns now underway to select a nominee for the presidential election this year.
“Let’s see now, one plus one is two,” Mr. Karygiannis said. “Definitely it adds up. If it quacks likes a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it smells like a duck, it is a duck.”
He added: “Although we might not be able to trace it and put a finger back on him [Mr. Harper], definitely like-minded individuals want Mr. Harper to succeed, and they see Mr. Rae as a threat, and are starting to point, but a brush on this, and that’s why the attack ads—if they are from that source—are coming," Mr. Karygiannis said.
“This is where we need legislation that says that anything spent in order to do character assassination, to portray, to move a particular leader before a campaign should be accountable for them during the campaign.”
Third-party spending to support or oppose candidates or political parties during federal elections is strictly limited under the Canada Elections Act. Mr. Harper, when he was head of the National Citizens Coalition after resigning a Commons seat in 1997, mounted a court challenge against federal third-party advertising limits, but eventually lost the case in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Peter Coleman, the coalition’s Toronto-based president, did not return email and telephone requests for comment.
Mr. Taylor, while confirming the Citizens Coalition posted its attack on Mr. Rae to coincide with the Liberal convention, said another recent campaign he mounted on behalf of the coalition was unrelated to partisan political affairs, or done with Mr. Harper in mind.
Mr. Taylor last Jan. 5 posted on his own political blog travel and expense reports for senior public servants who had taken part in a costly travel program intended to given them a look at public service management in other countries. Senior bureaucrats from two agencies that have recently had disputes with Mr. Harper—the National Capital Commission and Statistics Canada—were among the top three worst offenders on the list Mr. Taylor posted.
The NCC embarrassed Mr. Harper this past summer as it publicly reiterated the need for Mr. Harper to temporarily vacate his official residence at 24 Sussex Dr. for renovations former Auditor General Sheila Fraser had identified, and the former head of Statistics Canada last year resigned his post in a dispute with the government over its decision to eliminate the long form version of the national census.
In the case of Marie Lemay, the head of the National Capital Commission, Mr. Taylor included details of her hospitality expenses over two years, including business lunches with employees and guests while working in Ottawa.
Mr. Taylor said the revelations had nothing to do with the past disputes between the NCC and Mr. Harper.
“No, not at all, it was just one that had pretty specific expenses and it was one that I recognized, living in Ottawa,” he told The Hill Times.
New Democrat MPs also questioned whether the Citizens Coalition has been attacking Conservative opponents in an effort to help Mr. Harper politically.
NDP MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Techmseh, Ont.) also said the developments suggest Parliament should review third-party spending in between elections.
“Very much so,” he said. “But we also should be looking at party advertising in those same periods. It’s just so wide open to abuse, as we see with the Conservatives. I think we badly need to do that, it’s just such a glaring, gaping hole in our system. We have a right to be reasonably proud of how much better [than the U.S.] we’ve done with election financing and financing for political parties generally. If we don’t continue to improve it, you backslide.”
Original Article
Source: Hill Times
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