When a politician says "sincerely"
The federal Conservatives have unveiled a television ad they will begin running in Quebec this week, attacking Liberal leader Stephane Dion for his stance on the fiscal imbalance...UPDATE: Actually, it's worse than I imagined. Here's a still from the ad:Environment Minister John Baird and Industry Minister Maxime Bernier told reporters in Ottawa Monday that the ad campaign is meant to highlight Dion's "out-of-date views on federalism and the fiscal imbalance."
"In short, Stephane Dion is an extreme centralizer, an Ottawa politician who has never recognized the fiscal imbalance," Baird said. "He's a man Quebecers cannot trust to keep their hands off their hard-won gains."
Baird explained that they are launching the ad because Dion seems eager for election, insisting that the Conservative party is not.
"Dion voted against the budget and by default, for a spring election," Baird said. "Dion has an urge to campaign. We, on the other hand, have a genuine desire to govern."
The two Tory ministers insisted that while their party doesn't want a spring election, it is preparing for one by spending the next two weeks fanning out across the country to talk about the party's agenda, while Parliament is on Easter break.
The announcement about the ad campaign was also a rare opportunity for the Conservatives to show off their new campaign headquarters.
The headquarters is a massive, 17,000-square-foot war room in an Ottawa suburb, complete with its own TV studio.
"I sincerely hope we won't have to use this facility until 2009," Baird told invited reporters. "But should the Opposition force an election, the Conservative Party will be ready."
Check the sign just to Dion's right. To call a politician a vendu in Quebec is one of the worst possible insults -- akin to calling a black man an Uncle Tom. It plays on the worst possible emotions, in the most divisive possible way. It is simply outrageous, all the more so for the sly and deceptive way in which it is inserted into the ad. In the circumstances, pointing out that the "fiscal imbalance" Dion "refuses to recognize" does not exist -- as the Tories know full well -- seems superfluous. REDFACEDATE: Oops. It appears that's the ad that ran in February. Still outrageous, but old news. Here's the actual latest attack ad, which is merely manipulative, inflammatory and tendentious.
4/02/2007
related
Keep bookmarked posts here.
55 Comments
There's a point to this post, I presume?
I think it's now official that Harper is gonna bring down his government. There's no way that the Cons would be wasting so much money if not to capitalize on Dion's weaknesses. Harper is gonna blast Dion, just as Chretien ran over Day.
Um, wrong ad. The one released today doesn't have that screen.
While Harper was busy calling for firewalls, Dion was standing up the separatists. For that he gets called a sell out? Incroyable is right!
Isn't that a still from the ads that ran back in Feb in Quebec before the provincial election?
Andrew - you're a little late with your outrage. That "vendu" bit was the ad from months ago. The latest doesn't have that in it.
And "vendu" like "Uncle Tom"? Please.
Oops -- wrong ad. I stand by the reaction, though, even if I'm a few weeks late.
Et voilà. Le p'tit tas de merde qu'on appelle Le Premier Ministre du Canada dévoile enfin son vrai caractère.
Stephen Harper est un échec total.
My french is fairly non-existent, but doesn't 'vendu tel quel' mean 'sold as is'?
Does it not, then, make sense if the ad is about the Liberal party being for sale?
Or am I just horribly naive?
andrew...I see your French is as good as Gerard Kennedy's
vendu tel quel means sold as is...not sellout.
it appears in many of the cheesy ads the Tories tried to emulate.
Honest, if I was the Liberals, I would run ads saying, when we were in power, we didnt need television commercials
Jason, lest your memory has become selective, like so many other Liberals, please review the following link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Contingency_Act
The irony is very thick as I sit here doing my taxes and read about the finance minister who presided over the largest federal budget in history talk about someone else's presumed spending habits. If only I could get Mr Baird off my hard won gains, let alone Mr Dion!
I am waiting, perhaps hopelessly, for some small smidgen of evidence that Harper et al are actually principled conservatives.
There's no way the people who created that (earlier) ad would have been unaware of the resonance the word "vendu" has in Quebec political discourse. No way.
It doesn't matter that they tried to disguise it with "tel quel". Every francophone in Quebec would instantly grasp the point of using the term "vendu".
Those of you who disagree simply don't know Quebec.
And, don't forget, this is the man who ran on restoring honor and integrity to government. Appealing to the lowest common denominator, Luntz inspired wedge politics, outlandish attacks, these are the preferred tactics of Stephen Harper.
Andrew, will your friends in the MSM start calling out ads such as these, or will they just parrot them, as was the case during the last round? Is the media a conduit or a sober reader of the landscape? Your medium has been used, reporting curtailed, and yet you fixate on Dion's english. Wake-up call methinks.
Watching Liberals crying about attack ads is delicious.
This Antonio fellow doesn't seem to understand French, know anything about communication, or understand Quebec politics very well at all. Poor fellow.
"Vendu tel quel" was not chosen innocently. On the surface it indeed means "Sold as is", but given that separatists and ultra-nationalists have spent over a decade depicting M. Dion as a "vendu", as they did with Chrétien, and as indeed they have tried to depict Lafontaine, Cartier, Laurier, St-Laurent, etc., only the most deliberately foolish or naive observer of Quebec politics could claim this reference in Tory advertising wasn't intended to imply Dion is an "uncle tom".
As Jason Cherniak makes clear in his blog, it's pretty much the sickest thing one has seen in Canadian politics for a while, a supposedly federalist party intimating the leader of another federalist party is a "vendu", especially when Dion has paid an enormous price for defending Canada in the past decade. I should know, I saw him destroy enraged separatists' arguments often enough at "conférences" and "débats" at l'UdM. Given how much abuse proud federalists take in Quebec, particularly francophone federalists (as separatists just assume that's all that can be expected of "ethnics"), whatever our differences on other policy matters, using separatist insults against one another is considered beyond the pale: hence the Chrétien crowd's loathing of Paul Martin.
By the way, this scummy behaviour was first pointed out (as far as I know) by William Johnson in the Saturday February 17 Globe, see:
http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4780&sid=681d56cedae13085b1d605a2a43a62ea
I see nothing out of the ordinary what that press release. The attack ads are, in part, a retaliation to the constant hyping by the Liberals in the 2004 election about the Conservatives' scary hidden agenda to send us back to the dark ages and destroy Canada in a heap of flaming ruins.
The tactic actually worked: Martin eked out a victory,
The Conservatives have not forgotten. So now they are painting Dion in the same manner that Harper was painted in 2004, as a threat and a menace.
Dion, for his part, continues on the same tact the liberals' have used for years now, throwing the word "ideology", usually prefaced by "rigid", into every comment he makes about the conservatives.
Andrew, you're becoming as excitable as Cherniak. And 'vendu' as 'Uncle Tom?' Either your French sucks or you are having a snior moment.
Vendu,
On our streets
In our cities.
In Canada.
We're not making this up.
Only vendu can make things up.
You outrage would be funny if it wasn't borderline pathetic.
I don't think Stephane Dion is un vendu.
I just think he is very delusional about Canada.
Patrick,
Just curious...since you clearly figure that you understand Quebec politics way better than Coyne, what's your answer to eugeneforsey's post?
vendu tel quel means sold as is...not sellout.
True enough. It's an adjectival phrase. Perfectly innocent... in the appropriate context.
But "vendu", the adjectival noun, definitely means "sellout". I'm a self-taught quasi-bilingual francophile, and even I know that.
In English, we call this sort of thing "wordplay".
Next thing, M. Duddle, you'll be saying there was no double entendre in the BQ's late, very clever slogan, "Un parti propre au Québec".
These ads, the tour of the war room, the candidate training, etc are obviously all intended to intimidate and demoralize the Liberals. Surely the hard-core Liberal supporters want to see Dion hit back with some ads of his own. Which of course will play into Harper's hands--get the LPC to spend money prematurely, leaving them with less for the election campaign.
Memo to AC: Politics is a bloodsport, it's about time the Tories started fighting fire with fire.
"Un parti propre au Québec"
I remember that slogan. I also thought it was quite clever. I also liked the ADQ's "Au Quebec, on passe a l'action". Whatever is said about Quebec politics, they definitely are clever with the puns.
Also, if Liberals can call the Conservative Party 'un-Canadian' (smearing approximately 1 in 3 voting Canadians in the process), then calling Stephane Dion a sellout is not ... how should I put this ... unfair.
The liberals are all in a snit because they don't have money to run attack ads of their own.
Making a virtue of necessity, they attack the concept of attack ads.
Let's see Andrew, manipulative, inflammatory, tendentious not at all like those Liberal negative ads run in the 2004 and 2006 campaigns. Those ads and the general tenor of the Liberal campaigns were to the effect that Conservatives were un-Canadian.
It's kind of rich to hear people from the party of Jean Chretien whining about bullies and thugs.
It's almost as funny has having someone from the party who said Harper would turn Canadian troops against our own citizens quibbling over the subtleties of the term "vendu"... And are these the same people who told Canadian women they'd be locked up by Harper for getting abortions?
A bully is someone who can dish it out, but can't take it. Definition of the Liberals.
Actually, it's very comforting to see - within weeks of the election being triggered - that all the Liberals can offer in the face of strength is tears. Should help them corner the wimp vote.
Hmmm, google "vendu tel quel" and oddly the phrase seems to appear primarily in classified ads for $500 cars. I'm thinking Antonio has it right.
I would rather be called a naive or ignorant "observer" (vs. the participant I am) of Quebec politics than to equate the term "vendu" with "Uncle Tom".
Hyperbole at its finest, my friends.
Then again, I have "no social conscience" - a fine and dandy thing to say about your political opponents. I "am a threat to the rights and freedoms of all Canadians" - another just plain-spoken statement of fact.
Here's another saying that plays well in Quebec for my Liberal friends crying foul: je me souviens.
Andrew,
If you and Paul Wells (who linked this post on his blog) wish to catch the conservative in flagrante delicto you'll both have to work a little harder than going on to the Conservative Party website and analyze months old ads that aren't on the airwaves.
I know you're both as concerned as Dion on anyone dissenting from the Trudeau view of canadian federalism wish apparently is the only acceptable one but this effort comes across as a litttle lame.
The sun rises in the east, snow falls in the winter, robins build their nests in the spring and negative ads are negative.
If "Uncle Tom" is a term for someone who is a toady, a trained seal, a mouthpiece, or a 'vendu' of the ruling societal or political elite then Stephane Dion fits the bill
Outrage among "objective" journalists is funnier than the outrage among party strategists and politicians.
The next time I watch Duffy or Newman and hear the words "expert panel", I'll try not to barf.
Silly post, from someone who I used to respect ( awhile ago I might add)
I think equating "vendu" with "Uncle Tom" is...cripes, my standards for the mainstream media are so low that I'm actually somewhat proud of you for not working "Hitler" into your post.
I think you are "over-ethno-empathizing" here.
ok let's just start from the original premise of this blog entry.
Harper. insincere.
and other politicians are sincere?
Jack Layton
barely 2 months ago he threatened to table a non-confidence motion if the Conservatives didn't sent the much-maligned Clean Air Act back to parliamentary review. now he just completely shuts up.
Stephane Dion
back in early February the opposition passed the Liberals' Kyoto bill under a united euphoria and everybody in the Liberal camp were clamoring for an election. less than 2 months later their website brandished dire warnings of an evil Stephen Harper who was forcing "an election that Canadians do not want".
has all this slipped past your radar, Andrew? we had been on the defensive for quite some time. the attack ads were only a means of defense against the evil scheming ways of vultures and laughing hyenas who have no more respect for principled policy discourse than their own electoral fortunes.
or are you going to tell me that you now prefer the ultra-socialist Clean Air Act amendments that the opposition has just churned out?
now, personally, i honestly prefer to hedge until 2009, to clearly differentiate ourselves from the Liberals and the NDP. and if that's not how things turn out, for whatever reason, that's too bad. but i have no doubt in my mind that there's plenty that Harper needs to do before he even reaches the level of the Liberals and the NDP.
Steve L is exactly right.
Stephane Dion promised us that the only way to save Canada's Kyoto commitments and save the planet was to put him in charge in 2007.
Now that he doesn't want an election, he must have given up on the planet.
Why are you all afraid of an election ???? Really ??? or maybe this is an all party self righteous indignation ??? every party is simultaneously talking on both ends, their mouths and their arse anyways. Why not just do it , eh ?
What's going on with you, Coyne?
Really, what's the deal with you lately? Does Dion have pictures?
so Cherniak, Coyne & Wells . . le grand trois de liberal apologists take a sucker's trip down three month old ads and get all wound up about some words that they can't translate properly but try and use anyway to smear our PM.
Kewl work boys. We expect it from Cherniak, he wakes up every day, looks in the mirror & sees a Liberal, but you pros are supposed to be at least transparent.
Meanwhile our PM plays you media types for fools, keeps you screaming election, no election, yes election, no maybe not.
Gotta love it . . .
After almost two decades of the Liberals accusing Manning, then Day, and then Harper of just about every conceivable villainy and vile evil, excuse me if I find it difficult to shed a tear now for them...no matter how much they whine, snivel and pout like a bunch of little crybabies.
Those weanies sure love to dish it out, but they're total sucks when it comes to taking it.
As Harper once said about Martin...which had me laughing on the floor..."At least I can take a punch."
Far as I'm concerned, Harper et al can put the political boots to 'em until hell won't have any more! Looks good on 'em! Real good!
Much ado about nothing. The ads spoofed a K-Tel type ad, and other commenters already pointed out that there's no reference to the loaded term "vendu" = "sell-out."
Here's what Le Devoir (hardly a Conservative mouthpiece) had to say about the ads (with my amateur's translation after it):
http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/02/14/131087.html
"Ottawa -- Les publicités en français que les conservateurs ont lancées hier sont très différentes de la version anglophone, qui était plus agressive et reprenait des extraits de la course au leadership de Dion. On voulait alors tracer le portrait d'un chef sans colonne vertébrale, incapable de prendre des décisions difficiles. Mais il n'y a rien de cela pour le Québec, qui connaît beaucoup mieux le chef libéral. On mise plutôt sur l'humour pour rappeler le passé de Stéphane Dion, même si les annonces restent négatives. ...
Dans les trois publicités, les thèmes sont très québécois: le déséquilibre fiscal, les commandites, Jean Chrétien, la centralisation des pouvoirs... Des sujets invisibles dans les pubs en anglais. «Il y a du travail de "focus group" et de sondages là-dedans, ça paraît», dit Luc Dupont [spécialiste de la communication politique à l'Université d'Ottawa].
"The French ads that the Conservatives launched yesterday are very different from the English version, which was more aggressive and took some excerpts from Dion's leadership race. In those ads, the aim was to portray a spineless leader, unable to make difficult decisions. But there's nothing like that for Quebec, where the Liberal leader is much better known. Instead, humour is relied upon to recall Stephane Dion's past, even if the ads are negative. ...
In the three ads, the themes are very "québécois:" the fiscal imbalance, the sponsorship, Jean Chrétien, centralization of powers ... subjects which were absent (invisible) from the English ads. «There's some work from focus groups and surveys in there, it shows,» said Luc Dupont [University of Ottawa specialist on political communication].
Back to French class, all you "outrés."
Mr Coyne:
This post is truly sad, but even sadder is that when you find out that 1) you don't even have the ads straight; 2) you never called scandal on this ad two months ago and 3) that the ad actually reads "vendu tel quel", you say, hey, doesn't matter, the point stands. Well, no, the point does not, and, yes, it does matter, if for no other reason than that, since it reveals you ready to go ranting into print without even having looked at the object in question, it undermines your authority on this issue and a good deal more besides. Do your homework please and refrain from letting your month-long huffy at the Tories corrode what I would imagine to be the very currency of your profession: credibility.
As one who has long been an admiring, even when agonistic reader, I have to say this is a disappointment.
DMD
Apparently Gabby should brush up on her own French. Upon reading the Le Devoir article one finds no mention and therefore no interpretation of the "vendu tel quel" sticker. Which makes sense, given that's Le Devoir's separatist view of Dion and better to "faire passer sous le silence" (ignore) and allow it to keep running unchallenged rather than highlight an epithet which would then cause a ruckus as the term remains politically incorrect in Quebec, and probably cause ads to be withdrawn. Le Devoir only too happy to see Dion slimed - and typical of conservatives to try to rely on separatists to back them up. Hello all you little Mulroneyites!
As for the statement "other commenters already pointed out that there's no reference to the loaded term "vendu" = "sell-out."", that's wrong because:
a) some claim it's there but doesn't mean anything, in which case one has only to read William Johnson to realise one is wrong:
http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4780&sid=681d56cedae13085b1d605a2a43a62ea
b) it's not there, which only Gabby maintains, and which can easily be disproven by just watching the ad. Is this some sort of Bouchardesque "baguette magique" (magic wand) thinking, where uncomfortable facts just disappear because Gabby wants it so?
c) It is there, it does indeed imply sell-out, but as some commenters would have it, that's fine, because Dion is bad in x,y and z ways. This bunch's comments is imbued with anti-French overtones, which I guess shouldn't be too surprising, given the tinfoil hat brigade (Wells TM) which malingers on Coyne's website.
So in short, the three justifications for such slurs are determined ignorance, wilfull blindness and partisanship tinged with bigotry. However, any fair-minded observer in honest doubt as to the significance of the phrase will read William Johnson and condemn the ads, the same William Johnson, lest we forget, who recently published wrote a wildly positive biography of Stephen Harper:
http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4780&sid=681d56cedae13085b1d605a2a43a62ea
To be taken with a dose of West Coast Humor and a little wisdom of a prairie soul.
Every day is a new low for the Conservatives and the Harper’s Brigade of Men on Parade. They keep showing us how much bigger theirs are. Just watch Mr. Baird give us the tour of the “Cons War Room” with the smirk and the swagger of a man who is so full himself and his new power and with the daring only a bully would think was needed to try and intimidated the other leaders and the public.
You would think that Mr. Harper, having spent some time on the prairies would remember what happens when you spend to much time comparing while pissing in the wind, it always come back to you.
The “Harper Boys” are like drunken bulls in heat, so busy strutting with arrogance their stuff that they have not realized that we know that they have balls made out of glass. What with this climate changing everyday, they must be careful that the reverberation of their own shouting “We don’t want an election” does not cause the glass to shatter.
I am waiting for one the “Harper Boys” to call out “Come on, I can take you with on hand tied behind my back, come on, step outside”
This is a classic case of the bully who has taken over the school yard.
Female, almost 60 and still waiting to figure what the budget did for me.
Eugene Forsey Liberal:
So sorry I didn't meet your high standards in French language skills, what with my maladroit translation of an excerpt from a Le Devoir article.
Of course, I MUST defer in all humility to someone like you, who uses such a delicate and sophisticated nuanced appellation as "petite merde" to refer to the PM of the country, as well as that now immortal expression "tinfoil hat brigade" to describe anyone who dares disagree with your point of view.
Oh my! Such slings and arrows!
Remember the “Stand Up for Canada” election platform?” It was a 15-page litany of Liberal transgressions and how a Conservative government would be different. They would restore honor and integrity in government. They blathered on and on ad barfum about how the Conservative party would bring political accountability to Ottawa.
It seems that the push for absolute power caused absolute amnesia. They forgot they were Conservatives! They’re buying votes, airing attack ads, breaking promises, economical with the truth, spending money (biggest-spending budget in history and no income tax cuts for hard-working Canadians) – in just a little over a year, voilà, “Liberals in Blue Suits”.
Memo to Gerry Nicholls: As a NCC member, there will be no more money or memberships coming from me. To condone such American-style, Karl-Rove trash ads is irresponsible. These are the elected representatives who we are supposed to respect? And remember? They were going to be different!
So in other words, Andrew'w saying that the ads:
ARE NOT FAIR!
Well Andrew I do believe you've joined the well filled ranks of Liberal media shills,
content to parrot Liberal talking points almost verbatum.
C'mon the latest adds aren't even close to being inflammatory. Jeez, you're turning into quite a bit of a huff, AC.
And I'm not a member of any party.
Politics isn't a sweet lollypop game, and even so I see nothing in the new adds that is in poor taste... roll.
Just out of curiousity, Andrew, have you reimbursed the Western Standard for your cruise 2 years ago? You remember, the "conservative cruise"?
Oh, the humanity!
This post has been removed by the author.
sigh
Lost in Translation...seems to be a theme recently
I guess this is the same thing as the Boisclair "slant" comment which was completely blown out of proportion by English media. (Quelle Surprise)
Even an Asian restaurant called "Les Bridés" or "The Slants" in Montreal didn't put a stop to the furor...it's ok
Mock Outrage led people to vote for Dumont...something tells me it will be the same for the Tories...
keep calling them evil and bullies and whatever you want...I know us and the PQ threw everything we had at Dumont...
Same voters...
Boy, the pro-Harper posters here really are beyond decency . . . Lessee, the Liberals use despicable attack ads in 2004 and 2006, therefore it's just dandy for the Tories to use them in 2007! Beautiful logic! Thanks for the pure partisanship, guys, it's just what this country really needs!
Antonio on "yeux bridés" is really rich -- a beautiful lesson in how it's much more acceptable to be racist in French than it is in English.
Oh. Now I see that AC has devoted a whole post to the same thought as my earlier comment. Bother.
Considering there isn't a huge flare-up in Quebec it sounds like a relatively non-issue so far.
And no I wasn't in favor of the Conservative budget or aerospace subsidy...
"The announcement about the ad campaign was also a rare opportunity for the Conservatives to show off their new campaign headquarters.
The headquarters is a massive, 17,000-square-foot war room in an Ottawa suburb, complete with its own TV studio."
You chose to boldface this for a reason, but come on Andrew...Harper leads a minority government, and the Leader of the Opposition is on record as wanting "to get back to power as soon as possible". If Harper did not have election preparations ready when delivering his budget, he'd be derelict in his duties as Conservative leader.
And let's face it, Harper knows how to press his advantage...if you were a Liberal and saw how prepared the Conservatives seem to fight an election, saw how far ahead they are in fundraising, and what the polls look like, would you vote to trigger one?
Jack Mitchell: I invite you to montreal where we can discuss that issue while eating at that restaurant:
http://www.lesbrides.com/propos_lesbrides.html