Over Whose Head?

A part of a flyer targeting Justin Trudeau is shown in a handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO

It's a tough nut to crack. Whether a government in power should use its parliamentary mail-outs -- meant to inform constituents by their elected Members of Parliament of parliamentary and government news -- to engage in publishing them and circulating them as political advertisements informing Canadians of the ruling Conservatives' electoral-readiness contempt for the leader of one of the country's political parties.

The latest round of 'attack ads' produced and aired by the Conservatives, several years before the next election is due in 2015 betrays a possible anxiety on the part of the ruling party respecting the public fascination with the newly-crowned leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

His celebrity status, notwithstanding his lack of experience and expression of a well-conceived plan both for the rescue of his decimated party and the future of Canada, let alone his predilection for spouting nonsense seems to have galvanized the Conservatives into a bit of a  panic.

The 'attack ads' seem less an attack than a mildly comical chiding of the electorate that there are among us enough people fascinated by the facade of competence from a man who clearly does not appear to be prepared to lead anything more serious than a chorus in a theatrical musical production, but the onlooker can be forgiven for wondering why, with the well-filled election coffers of the Conservative Party, the funding isn't coming out of its own funds?

Reaching the questionable decision to use the parliamentary mail-outs, while not exactly representing anything unethical, does in fact, represent a consideration out of the ordinary. And the cost is not all that onerous; an estimate appears to be around $220,000 for printing and delivering documents to the ridings of all 166 Conservatives MPs as 10-per-centers.

In contrast, the Liberals have soberly made the decision to pay for Justin Trudeau's new adverts as leader of the Liberal Party out of its own funds. "We are spending party money to deliver a positive message to Canadians. When they are using your taxpayer money to send another negative nasty message", huffed Liberal MP, and former Liberal leader, Stephane Dion. The use of parliamentary privileges for partisan purposes is not quite on with him.

But of course it's done all the time, just not in this particular way. Still it leaves a niggling, nagging doubt, one that the Conservatives would have been well advised to consider beforehand. The doubt is in the sphere of exercising poor judgement. As for Justin Trudeau, he has chosen to abstain from emoting anything that might be seen as cheekily disrespectful of his political adversaries. Though true to form, it'll come in other venues, spontaneously, betraying him, regardless.

There is nothing all too much to criticize about experience revolving around obtaining a teaching degree, teaching drama, French, math and social studies at a private academy for three years, then going on to study engineering, switching to environmental geography, and finishing neither. He got some traction out of chairing the Katimavik program, and a lot of income out of public speaking, but that background does not prime ministerial material make.