Now that the election campaign is beginning, it's time to prepare for the various political campaigns. Every party wants votes, so we're going to be inundated with promises and criticisms of the other guy, whoever the other guy may be. So, get ready to see lots of different campaigns paid for by our various political parties.
That's to be expected, and it's what you see every election. This election there's another campaign, and it's one that isn't officially connected to any party. It might be completely transparent who they want you to vote for, or at least who they do not want to receive votes, but it is technically independent. It's the Saskatchewan Government Employees Union, or SGEU, and they've been running their own campaign for the past few months.
It has been less than subtle, and quite obvious what candidate they want you to support. The ads, while professing to be about raising awareness, are more accurately leveling accusations against the current government and attempting to drive people towards the opposition. One of the televised spots is a melodramatic piece of work that suggests if you vote for the party the SGEU doesn't like, children will die and you don't love Saskatchewan. They don't say what party this is, but it is in power, so there's a very subtle clue. Like the rest of the campaign, it's a thinly veiled attack ad against the incumbent Saskatchewan Party.
While I don't respond to attack ads myself, I could almost accept it if it came from an actual political party. It would come with a promise of an improvement, and a proposal for that party's methods of improving that area, in this case social services. It's just how these campaigns work, with everyone telling you how they'll be so much better at being in power than the other guy.
With the SGEU's campaign, there really isn't much there to go on. It is an attack, but nothing more. There are no solutions, there is no plan for improving social services. There's barely even a request to bring it up with your local candidate, included perhaps so they wouldn't seem quite so flagrantly biased. The audience is told what the SGEU thinks, but they aren't given any indication of why listening to them would improve anything.
It also makes me somewhat suspicious of the party the union supports. I say this not to make an accusation, because it's very likely they just went off on their own in order to execute the campaign. I say it because it's the type of campaign a party would like to distance itself from if it backfires, and by having the SGEU running the show, it makes it very easy for the party in question to deny responsibility. The NDP, for example, has had a few controversial ad campaigns, so one who is in a conspiratorial frame of mind might suggest that they're trying the same thing through a different channel.
I say that not because I believe it's the case, but because I don't believe the people behind the campaign considered how it might appear. They have been so seduced by their agenda that they haven't considered how blatant attack ads might appear suspicious to many voters. I hope the real political parties run campaigns that are a bit less filled with vitriol, and more focused on solutions they can offer.
