Skip to main content
ottawa notebook

Stephen Harper has "something to hide" and that's the reason he's shutting down Parliament, Michael Ignatieff's Liberals charge in a new series of radio and print ads launched today.

Calling the move his "holiday gift to himself," the Liberal ads suggest the Prime Minister acted in secret during the holidays by proroguing Parliament to avoid controversy around tricky issues such as the Afghan detainee story, the economy and the environment.

Question Period: Journalist panel on the ads

"While Canadians were busy getting ready for New Year's Eve, Stephen Harper was busy, too," says the deep male voice on one of the three radio ads (there is a French-language ad and two English ads).



<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/fyU_Y52ro_c&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/fyU_Y52ro_c&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>


"He was busy shutting down Parliament. He did it in the middle of the holidays because he thought Canadians wouldn't notice. It was his holiday gift to himself. He didn't want to have to answer questions about torture cover-ups, climate change unemployment."

It concludes: "Stephen Harper did this secretly because he has something to hide."

Meanwhile, the print ad features the Peace Tower behind a chain link fence with the word "Closed" across it: "On December 30th, Stephen Harper shut down Parliament," it says. "While Canada was on the hot seat in Copenhagen because of Conservative failure on the environment … (while the Harper government was) under attack for their cover-up in the Afghan torture scandal … Stephen Harper thought he would sneak a fast one by you."



<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/7QbXftg3Iu8&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/7QbXftg3Iu8&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>


You get the idea.

The Liberals are taking a page from the Tory negative playbook in producing these ads. The problem is, however, they don't have as much money as the Conservatives so there are no television ads. (The Tories ran attack ads against the Liberals during the Super Bowl broadcast in 2007. )

It's not clear how often the radio ads will air or in what newspapers the print version will appear. A Liberal spokesman said the campaign is "cross-country."

With this campaign, the Grits are hoping to harness the concerns across the country about Mr. Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament.

For example, a Facebook page was recently set up by Alberta university student Christopher White to protest the shut down. More than 135,000 people have joined the site, surpassing the response to a similar campaign launched by Conservative activists in response to the coalition last year.

---

Update Shortly after the Liberals released their adds, the Prime Minister's Office sent out the following talking points to Tory MPs and supporters:

From: Alerte-Info-Alert <Alerte-Info-Alert@pmo-cpm.gc.ca>

To: Alerte-Info-Alert <Alerte-Info-Alert@pmo-cpm.gc.ca>

Sent: Sun Jan 10 13:19:26 2010

Subject: Ignatieff Liberals Renew Attack on Canadian Soldiers

Michael Ignatieff, unseen in Canada until Thursday night, when he arrived on a flight from Europe after an extended vacation, has launched a small-budget ad campaign intended to distract attention from his lengthy absence.

The ad campaign renews the Ignatieff Liberals' claim about a "coverup" of "torture" of Taliban prisoners. Mr. Ignatieff persists in this attack even though the allegation that torture was covered up represents a direct attack on the men and women of Canada's Armed Forces.

The Ignatieff Liberals like to pretend that their wild allegation bypasses the soldiers who captured and handed over Taliban prisoners -- but that's just not logical.

The rest of Mr. Ignatieff's ad campaign is more of the same -- idle chatter that is out of touch with the real priorities of Canadians -- including Canadians' number one priority, the economy.

Our Government is hard at work and remains hard at work on the things that matter to Canadians, in particular the economy. This includes completing implementation of our Economic Action Plan, returning to balanced budgets once the economy has recovered, and building a strong economy for the future.

Interact with The Globe