A Conservative Party attack ad warning voters that, if re-elected, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau is coming for their homes seeped into local mailboxes this week, the week before Canada’s 43rd general election Oct. 21.
The large, full-colour campaign postcard features an altered image of a so-called “Secret Liberal Memo”, with the words “Justin Trudeau not as advertised” superimposed at the top.
The heading says “Justin Trudeau has a secret plan to tax you even more if re-elected, just to pay for his never-ending deficit”, along with the messaging that there will be “a huge tax on the sale of your home”, and “a massive hike to his national carbon tax”.
It’s this kind of negative politics that reminds Gorham Street resident Doug Mossop of the particular brand of nasty attack-style politics he sees in the United States.
“I don’t know who is running everybody’s campaigns, but I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve never seen the extent of the nastiness, and negativity this bad, with elections as we’re seeing now,” Mossop said, who threw the postcard out in disgust and didn’t read what was on the back.
The retired special education teacher said he was disheartened when he noticed the flyer earlier this week buried in the usual pile of junk mail that gets delivered to his door.
As someone who is closely following the federal election, he said the fact it was making claims that are false and have been debunked by media fact checks is not only unethical, but it could disenfranchise voters from the whole democratic process.
“I said to one of my neighbours, who is a staunch Conservative, that the party you are voting for is very negative. And he didn’t seem to care,” Mossop said. “I’m almost at the point I don’t even want to vote because of all this mudslinging. We’re becoming like the U.S., and we shouldn’t be.”
The Conservative claim that the Liberals plan to slap a 50 per cent tax on the profits of home sales after one year of ownership first surfaced as a ‘dear friend’ letter sent out Sept. 30, 2019 on Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s official letterhead and signed by him.
It details what it says is a proposed Liberal government policy to implement a “new sliding scale tax that would be applied to capital gains on home sales”. That would include a 50 per cent tax after one year of ownership, 25 per cent after two years, 15 per cent after three years, 10 per cent after four years, and 5 per cent after five years.
“I’m writing you about an alarming proposal that has leaked from inside Justin Trudeau’s government, one that would hurt homeowners and make life less affordable for families across Canada,” Scheer writes.
“Adam Vaughan, a Toronto Liberal MP and Justin Trudeau’s specially appointed advisor on Housing and Urban Affairs, has proposed a capital gains tax on the sale of primary residences. As you know, there are currently no capital gains taxes when a person sells the house they live in,” Scheer continues.
The Conservative leader then proceeds to dick-and-jane out how bad such a policy would be for people who have to move for a new job, seniors looking to downsize, and people hit with sudden health problems.
“And it would be devastating to families going through marriage, divorce, or the birth of a new child,” said Scheer. “...I will make sure that this sort of Liberal tax never sees the light of day.”
But there’s one problem with Scheer’s assertions and promises, according to the Newmarket-Aurora Liberal campaign team of Tony Van Bynen.
“It was never considered as part of our platform. It is not in our platform. It will never be supported by a re-elected Liberal government,” a spokesperson said Thursday. “The Conservative Party knows this, but they have decided to continue their deliberate misinformation campaign."
The local Liberals say the idea of a capital gains tax on the sale of primary residences came from a submission based on feedback that Toronto-area MP Adam Vaughan received at one of a number of housing town halls held across Ontario in 2018.
Vaughan responded recently to what he calls the Conservative’s misinformation campaign in a statement on his campaign website.
“To be perfectly clear. Again. It’s not in our platform. We’ve never considered it. It’s not something the party has endorsed. It’s not something the party will endorse. It won’t happen after we’re re-elected. Period,” Vaughan said.
“Andrew Scheer knows this. The Conservative Party has been told this, and yet they won’t stop sharing it,” he continued. “Even after the media has confronted and exposed Scheer’s campaign of misinformation, the Conservatives continue to deliberately spread this falsehood.”
Trudeau, himself, tweeted Oct. 17 that “Conservatives are misleading Canadians. We will NOT put a 50% tax on the sale of your home”.
Newmarket-Aurora Liberal candidate Tony Van Bynen is also hitting back at the false claims.
"It's disappointing that the Conservatives have resorted to misleading people in this community, instead of proposing actual solutions of their own,” said Van Bynen.
“With regards to real policy on which the Liberal government has actually taken action, we launched Canada's first National Housing Strategy, which is a 10-year, $55-billion investment to ensure that Canadians have a safe and affordable place to call home."
When reached today for comment, Newmarket-Aurora Conservative candidate Lois Brown’s campaign manager said the attack ad “was probably a piece of correspondence coming out of headquarters, they send out messaging all the time”.
“All I know is we’re really not focused on what comes out of Ottawa, we’re focused on local issues,” Peter Seemann said. ““But look, we support our party overall, and Newmarket-Aurora residents have a choice to make on Monday. We know there’s been lots of false news swirling around from various media outlets and parties and, the good thing is, voters have a choice to make and they’ll do that Monday.”
Seemann said in a riding with about 80,000 voters, there’s bound to be a certain percentage of people who are going to express concerns and frustrations, and that is their democratic right. He said he’s heard complaints about personal attacks and accusations against various Conservative candidates, and complaints about the placement of election signs on lawns.
“I’m not here to debate ethical issues with negative politics,” Seemann said. “Unfortunately, we live in an era with constant information bombarding us from all sides, it’s almost as if you can choose an opinion and find things to back that up. People have to sift through the noise and make an educated decision as best as possible.”
Like all the local parties in this election, Seemann said the Conservative campaign is “trying to put forward ideas that are going to motivate voters”.
“We’ve worked very hard and ran a clean campaign from the very beginning, so we have no regrets at all, and we have three days to go,” he said. “So, the best candidate and the best party will win on Monday, both locally and nationally.”
As far as Newmarket resident Mossop is concerned, he has no allegiance to any one party and said once misinformation is put out there, the damage is done.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was also called out this week for making misleading claims about the Green Party and its leader Elizabeth May.
A campaign flyer distributed by the NDP falsely claimed that the Green Party supports Conservative budget cuts and that it will not defend access to abortion, according to local TV news reports.
“I know we’ve been talking about Elizabeth May saying she would consider working with a Conservative minority government, and that’s concerning to us because we don’t feel like progressive movements have much in common with Conservatives,” Newmarket-Aurora NDP candidate Yvonne Kelly said.
“In general, I think we’ve ran a very positive campaign, and I think Jagmeet (Singh) has had a lot of things thrown at him, so maybe this is frustration at the end of the day,” she said. “Overall, we’ve taken the high ground. There will be times when people don’t agree and it sounds like you’re taking the other person out at the knees.”
But Kelly said she’s frustrated by how far some people will go to spread misinformation.
“What we know in our riding with the Conservatives, is they’re telling everybody that the carbon tax is taking money out of your pocket, without even acknowledging the rebate to get people to vote against the carbon tax and the Liberals for that,” she said. “And now they’re spending copious amounts of money on a mailout to propagate misinformation.”
“Between the Liberals and the Conservatives going on and on about how the other is elitist and only care about the rich, get over yourselves, you guys,” Kelly said. “You can’t claim the high ground on this, you are both the parties of big business, don’t tell us you’re going to fight for the little guy, that’s never been the case, ever.”
Newmarket political pundit Darryl Wolk offers a different perspective.
"My general take is if there is a party logo on a flyer, Facebook post or TV ad, it is probably best to take it with a grain of salt," he said. "It is hard to say it is a lie that Scheer won't introduce abortion legislation, or Trudeau won't introduce a tax because, often times, these things happen after the election. It is hard for parties to keep election platforms, generally, when they are in government."
An analysis by CBC News published Oct. 7, 2019, shows that almost half, or 47 per cent of communications put out by the Conservatives. have been negative or partly negative, with the Liberals ringing in at 26 per cent for its negative messages.
The New Democrats trump the Liberals at 37 per cent for negative campaigning, followed by 18 per cent for the Green Party and 13 per cent for the Bloc Quebecois.
