Conservative attack ads are bully politics

PRIME Minister Stephen Harper is hypocritical when he denounces the cyber-bullying in the case of Rehtaeh Parsons but allows his party to engage in some cyber-bullying of its own.

An online and TV attack ad about Justin Trudeau shows the newly minted Grit leader taking off his shirt to raise money for the Canadian Liver Foundation as an announcer raises questions about his judgment.

We’re not suggesting that the situation of a politician criticized by opponents is anything like that of a teenage girl who is abused and harassed by distribution of photos of the crime.

But there’s merit to the old advice: attack ideas, attack philosophies, attack points of view — but don’t attack the person.

The Tories are certainly not the only Canadian political party to spread around negative-ad muck, although they seem to take particular pleasure in dumping it over the heads of new Liberal leaders.

Both Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff were similarly pilloried by the Tories when they took the top Grit job. In the wake of the ads, both struggled to keep the loyalty of party members, much less win over other Canadians.

Bullying has been around forever and it’s a tough behaviour to stamp out, but that doesn’t mean our political parties and their leaders should behave badly without getting called on it. Despite politicians’ sometimes tarnished images, they are important role models.

When teenagers assess role models, they have an unfailing ability to call out adults for telling them not to do something those same adults do. Why should teens believe a political leader who says it’s wrong to gang up on someone and attack him publicly for, say, inexperience, when that leader and the back-room strategists are rubbing their hands in glee over the next round of attack ads?

In the long run, these ads degrade the party that creates them, give credence to all-too-popular sentiment that politicians (most of whom spend long hours trying to help constituents) are a shady lot, reduce political debate to who can afford the best attack-ad agency and weaken democracy by robbing Canadians of a chance to assess up-and-coming political leaders on their merits.

It’s time our politicians moved beyond the bully ads and got back to business: debating policy, not personality.

Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca
Author: editorial