The Conservative Party hit back hard Monday at Liberal Leader Paul Martin's contention that voters should return a Liberal government because of its track record in Ottawa.
Hours after Mr. Martin told a Charlottetown audience that Canadians should look not at the Opposition “promises” but at his own “record” instead, the Conservatives released an advertisement showing a garbage truck being filled with money.
The advertisement -- one of three available on-line -- begins with a well-dressed man pulling a $50 bill off one of many stacks of notes, crumpling it up and tossing it in the wastepaper basket of his corporate-looking office. The words “Sponsorship scandal, 1/4 billion” flash across the screen.
Scenes of the garbage being collected by a cleaner, bagged, thrown in a dumpster and emptied into a truck are interrupted with a series of messages. “HRBC Boondoggle, 1 billion,” says one. Another notes that gun registry costs are “Approaching 2 billion.”
The ad closes with the question “Can you really afford another four years of Liberal waste?” and urges voters to “demand better.”
The ad mirrors Tory Leader Stephen Harper's arguments that a change of government is necessary to bring honesty and accountability back to Ottawa. A statement earlier Monday from Mr. Harper's office said that returning the Liberals to power will worsen the “culture of corruption” in the capital.
“If re-elected, the Liberals will shut down the sponsorship investigations and we will never know where the missing millions went and who was responsible,” he said. “Paul Martin called this unnecessary election as a last ditch attempt to cover up the Liberals' record of waste, mismanagement and corruption. If the Liberals are allowed to get away with this one, the culture of corruption will worsen.”
Mr. Martin has done his best to portray Mr. Harper as out of touch with Canadian values, arguing that radically reducing the tax burden would require broad cuts to the social fabric.On Monday, while campaigning in Eastern Ontario, Mr. Harper criticized the Liberal for running a campaign based on fear and attacks.
“The Prime Minister suggests we're un-Canadian because we want lower taxes, if you can believe this,” he said in Cornwall. “I think they're going to run on a slogan: ‘Tax me, I'm Canadian. Waste my money, I'm Canadian'.”
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