NDP In Saskatchewan Proving How Desperate They Are!

This is just the first of many tactics that the NDP are going to pull heading into the fall election.  I gave them over 24 hours to make things right before I commented.  I am calling on Kevin Yates(NDP) to resign and for teh NDP to publish a public apology on the issue.  Also whoever is responsible for this advertisement should be fired immediately for intentionally misleading the voting public.  This is far from taking the high road, but with that said, did anyone every think that Dwain Lingenfelter would ever take that direction going into an election?  Mr. Lingenfelter is well known for these tactics and once the election is over and he gets his butt handed to him you will see him cozying up to his capitalist buddies in Alberta looking for a job.  The days of this type of politician are over and he needs to realize as much.

NDP don't know who edited fabricated quote

No action from Advertising Standards Canada

Reported by News Talk Radio staff

Posted Thursday, July 21, 2011 - 1:45pm

Change text size: + -

It sounds like the NDP aren't exactly sure who did an edit on Brad Wall as MLA Kevin Yates continues to defend an NDP radio ad that fabricated a quote from Premier Brad Wall.

“I don’t know what to say on that particular quote because I don’t know … where the media company put it together from,” said Yates, speaking with CHAB radio in Moose Jaw, about the attack ad.

Yates was asked by CHAB if in fact the audio of Premier was spliced.

“I’m not 100 per cent sure, myself, at this point. We hire an ad agency and they put ads together.”

Yates says they will look into how the audio came about but says, for now, the ad will run just the way it is.

To listen to the clips and the ad as they were heard on News Talk Radio's John Gormley Live on July 21, 2011, click HERE.

No action from Advertising Standards Canada

There will be no action from Advertising Standards Canada on the NDP ad.

Janet Feasby is the vice-president of Advertising Standards Canada. She says political advertising doesn't face the same guidelines.

“The code is not intended to govern or restrict the freedom of expression of public opinion or ideas through political advertising. Certainly, Canadians are … entitled to expect that type of advertising.”

Sask. Party discover quote is spliced

Saskatchewan Party MLA Bill Boyd is calling the ad desperate after his party discovered two completely different statements from Premier Brad Wall were spliced together to create a quote.

The different statements allegedly come about 10 minutes apart in a scrum that was held during the crop insurance strike.

The Saskatchewan NDP issued a statement saying the Wall government's reaction to the ad is "childish" and "over the top".

"We stand by the advertisement which displays in Brad Wall's own words the disdain he has shown for middle class, working families from teachers to health care professionals, from Crown workers to government employees," said NDP House Leader Kevin Yates in the written statement.

"The ad is an accurate reflection of the government's attitude toward working people, and we will continue to expose that attitude."

Boyd believes the ad should be pulled and the NDP should pay for it instead of the taxpayers.

Boyd calls the ad an act of a desperate man way behind in the polls leading up to the provincial election.

Feasby says they get complaints about political ads every year -- especially around election time. However, Advertising Standards Canada cannot have this ad pulled. 

Reported by News Talk Radio's Justin Blackwell, Trelle Berdeniuk and Natalie Geddes.
Edited by News Talk Radio's Karen Brownlee and Karin Yeske.

Twisted words fuel cynicism

 

 

THE STARPHOENIX JULY 21, 2011

 

 

It might be the case, as columnist Murray Mandryk noted here last week, that the NDP is doing politics differently this time around, with its focus on striving to regain power in 2015.

Yet, if the party's idea of taking a new tack is to concoct misleading political radio advertisements by splicing together sound bites from a press conference and presenting them out of context to attack Premier Brad Wall, it's going to be a long road back for Dwain Lingenfelter's NDP .

It's astounding that, in an age where almost every reporter and political operative carries audio/video recording devices, that any political party even would make such a ridiculous attempt to distort the words of a rival in order to gain a political advantage. When such amateurish attempts are quickly exposed, as they seemed to be in this case, it undermines the credibility of those who engage in the subterfuge and adds further to public cynicism about politics.

The NDP ad asks: "When working families ask for help with the rising cost of living, what is Brad Wall's response?' It then provides a sound clip that purportedly has the premier saying: "I don't really care. We're not going to do it and they're coming back to work."

The "I don't really care" actually was the premier's response at a media scrum to a question about what impact SGEU rhetoric would have on him, after Mr. Wall announced the government's intention to legislate back to work Saskatchewan's striking crop insurance adjusters. The rest of the quote was an earlier comment regarding the use of flood victims as pawns in SGEU's contract negotiations.

As dismaying as the misleading ad was NDP House Leader Kevin Yates's response to the Saskatchewan Party making a fuss about the distortion.

"We stand by the advertisement, which displays in Brad Wall's own words the disdain he has shown for middle class working families ... The ad is an accurate reflection of the government's attitude toward working people, and we will continue to expose that attitude," Mr. Yates wrote on the NDP's caucus website.

But no amount of bluster can change the fact that the ad misrepresents the words of the premier, and can hardly be construed as "accurate."

Surely, without going to these odious lengths the NDP can find enough in legislative actions over the past 3¾ years ranging from the prolonged contract talks in the health sector to changes to the Construction Industry Labour Relations Act to tough essential services legislation in order to make the argument that the Wall government is neither labour friendly nor kind to "working families."

Unfortunately, it seems the New Democrats are taking their cue from the federal Liberals and Conservatives who, in the leadup to the last election, demonstrated that distortion and misattribution of rivals' comments make for useful political fodder, truth be damned.

When Mr. Yates opines, "People are fed up with their tax dollars going out the door to political spin doctors and ministerial assistants whose only job appears to be to launch political attack ads from their office computers," he needs to stop and think. It's public money that supported this misleading NDP caucus radio ad, as well, and taxpayers are no less fed up with these shenanigans.

THE editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper's editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.

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