Please Advise! Who’s Winning the Ad War, Carney or Poilievre?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD. in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Even before the election campaign gets underway, the TV ads have been running nonstop. Which ad campaigns do you think have been most effective?

Signed,

Cable Guy

Dear CG,

Maybe the pizza ones? You know times are strange when pizza commercials are speaking not of gooey cheese and spicy pepperoni but international trade policy. But in fact the Pizza Pizza chain has been running ads for “reverse-tariff pizza,” which is apparently what was referred to a few months ago as a discount.

Almost every other ad though has been political, the bulk of them sponsored by the Conservatives as they paint both Mark Carney and the TV screen in bloody shades of red.

The Liberals have joined in with equally cheery messages. Remarkably, the Liberal and Conservative ads have exactly the same theme: the other team's leader is a craven stooge of Donald Trump. The upcoming election appears to be a contest of who can smear their opponent with whatever brand of orange tar the U.S. president seems to apply with a trowel every morning.

The Liberals probably have the easier job. Their cleverest ad features a series of Trump slogans which are then repeated almost verbatim by Poilievre. “Everything is broken,” each man says in turn.

The Conservative ads on the other hand make vague charges about Carney helping Trump take jobs south, against that blood-red background. The red is doing a lot of the work, since the copy doesn't really land. You get the feeling that if Canada was feuding with the Pope they'd show Carney wearing a three-storey hat.

The Conservative ad blitz is driven partly by the fact that the party has a large cash fund on hand, but once the election is called, spending limits kick in. So they must blow it now in a wild spree. And if you're looking to get rid of a lot of money fast, it's either TV ads or Tesla stock.

The Hospital Employees’ Union is advertising too. Their ad campaign attacks Poilievre as dangerous to the Canadian health-care system. Unfortunately for Poilievre, it seems an apple a day does not keep the nurses away. At the very least the HEU ads might remind people that when you're on the operating table, with the gleaming scalpels lined up beside you, maybe it isn't smart to arrive wearing a Maple MAGA hat.

Dr. Steve is not going to make confident predictions about how all these ads are playing with the public — he has learned to his chagrin that expecting logic from the electorate is a mug's game. But every time the face of Trump appears in that Conservative ad it seems to undercut the intended message. The sight of Trump's grotesque mask now inspires a visceral response in Canadians — and that response is to close ranks against the threat. That means supporting the government, not the opposition. Who sees a scary picture of Trump and thinks, “I need to vote for the truck convoy/crypto guy?”

To be fair though, Poilievre does not really seem like a Trump figure. Perhaps he's more Nixonian. Trump is a bigoted imbecile; Nixon was a poisonous schemer. Trump is a lazy, ignorant megalomaniac; Nixon was calculating and treacherous. Trump is a random trash bag of corruption and perverse nonsense; Nixon was devious and Machiavellian. Trump thinks Machiavelli is an Italian sports car.

There is one way Poilievre seems like Trump though — a complete lack of self-awareness. Witness his X post from March 12: “Mark Carney has nothing but slogans,” Poilievre wrote. “I have a plan to put Canada First!”

Remarkable. It was like Trump saying, “Joe Biden golfs too much. FORE!”

Mr. Axe the Tax hates slogans? He must also despise rhymes. Poilievre the slogan-hater responded to Carney's removal of the tax by saying, “I call it the carbon tax con job.” Quick, put that on a t-shirt. It's a new twist on surrealism. “This is not a pipe,” said René Magritte. “This is not a slogan,” says Pierre Poilievre.

The Conservative ads do not simply try to tie Carney to Trump. They conclude by saying, “Mark Carney: He's just like Justin.”

Ah, fond memories. Trudeau's last day as prime minister was only last Thursday — it usually takes longer for nostalgia to kick in. But Poilievre and company clearly miss him already. They're still running against him.

Does that even work anymore? The once-hated Trudeau spent his lame-duck months standing up against the Mar-a-Lago tariff toad and looking quite statesmanlike in doing so. Saying Carney is “just like Justin” suggests the two men have the same enemies. Which implies that Trudeau's opponents all have the same friends.

They say generals are always fighting the last war. Poilievre's ad campaign seems rather like the “Charge of the Right Brigade.” Theirs is not to reason why, etc. Happy campaigning!