It's over

Malcolm Mayes cartoon - The Edmonton Journal

“The most Important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said”. The Canadian electorate spoke loudly on Monday electing a majority Liberal government thus ending the rule of the Harper Government. Canadians were ready for a change, and that desire for change affected everything in this election. It’s not what the Conservatives said that influenced people, unless their intent was to get the voters to vote for other parties. Let’s look at some of these messages.

“Justin Trudeau is just not ready.” This is an odd argument to make. We can also add “Does he have the experience to be Prime Minister?” and “He’s way in over his head.” The first time any candidate gets elected Prime Minister they are going to be inexperienced, yet Canada has survived. While the Conservatives focused on trying to make Justin Trudeau look inexperienced and even foolish, people engaged with the candidate on a personal level. They liked him, so the questions backfired producing selective perception, with the viewers decoding these messages in a globally contrary way. As a result, the voters answered the questions in a positive way, not with the negative conclusions the Conservative Party thought they would:

• “Justin Trudeau is just not ready” became “Justin Trudeau is ready to be Prime Minister.”
• “Does he have the experience to be Prime Minister?” was answered with “He does have the experience to be Prime Minister.”
• “He’s way in over his head” changed to “He’s NOT way in over his head.”

At the end of the campaign the Conservative Party tried to focus on the tax increases the Liberal Party would have to bring in once elected. It was done with a bit of theatre with someone counting out the thousands of dollars it would cost while a cash register “dinged” in the background. It was supposed to make people afraid of tax increases, but this too missed the mark. The message was that the Liberals will start spending again to build infrastructure and create more jobs. After almost ten Conservative years of neglecting infrastructure and with cuts to services and programs, the Liberal party was a refreshing change. The Conservatives were telling us that they’re not done yet with all their cuts, in spite of some paltry promises to bribe taxpayers with their own money. The Liberals, on the other hand, were saying they would spend and even run a deficit for three years to get Canada back on track. For voters who had lost their jobs, or suffered from the closure of government offices, this was a refreshing change and the Conservatives supplied a nice visual to confirm this.

Now that the election is over and the Liberals have a majority government, and now that Steven Harper has resigned, the Conservative Party has purged their website of all election rhetoric and negative ads. But the ads and messages still survive on the Conservative Party of Canada Facebook page. As we all know, pictures and video live forever on Facebook. The attempt to induce electors to elect Conservatives out of fear did not work.

Democracy is the process of making your voices heard and being able to communicate with those in power. This is a lesson the incumbent, Stephen Harper, forgot. His loyal base was still there, but he forgot to count the 3 million extra votes of the people who wanted change, like students. This is a perfect illustration of why every vote DOES count, and a good argument for NOT using negative ads.

Works cited

Image used: Mayes, Malcolm. “Malcolm Mayes cartoons for October 2015”. The Edmonton Journal Website”.  http://edmontonjournal.com/gallery/malcolm-mayes-cartoons-for-october-2015. Web. 20-OCT-2015.

Quote used: Drucker, Peter F. “Leadership”. Reader’s Digest Treasury of Wit and Wisdom. Eds. Wertheimer et al. Montreal: The Reader’s Digest Association (Canada) Ltd., 2006. 199. Print.

Hawk, Ad. "Conservatives' Trudeau attack ads worked, but maybe not 'forever'". CBC News Website - Politics Webpage. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-attack-ads-trudeau-conservatives-1.3270164/. Web. 20_OCT-2015.

Conservative Party of Canada Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/cpcpcc?fref=ts/. Web. 20-OCT-2015.