Conservatives Unleash Attack Ads

The Canadian Conservatives have unleashed a series of radio ads bashing the Liberal Party and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. The Globe and Mail has the story here:

The federal Conservatives unleashed a series of radio attack ads yesterday that declare Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberals “desperate” and mired in corruption — a tone that could carry through an election campaign anticipated to begin later this week.

The Tories are also preparing to publish their campaign platform which, The Globe and Mail has learned, will include a number of Liberal-oriented social initiatives, including a commitment to increase foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product by 2015. The pledge, along with cash for daycare and infrastructure spending, are an apparent effort by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to prevent the Liberals from blaming his party for the death of their budget.

The Tory advertisements released yesterday accuse the Prime Minister of being willing to “do anything to hang on to power” and of “trying to avoid you, the voter.”

In one ad, a man’s voice says: “Paul Martin says ‘wait.’ For what? More waste? More corruption?”

The Tories rolled out the ads as the Prime Minister Martin pleaded for a return to civility in Parliament.

“We’ve got to find our way back to the high road,” he said yesterday in Halifax after signing a $137.3-million deal to improve child care in Nova Scotia, the fifth province to sign on…

The election season has begun early.