Pre-Election Spending

You can see the CP Story here.

In a nutshell:

• The Tories are flying around the province spending money as frantically and carelessly as Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions.
• Nothing that the Tories are doing is illegal, though. Subsection 67(1) of New Brunswick's Politcal Process Financing Act defines election expenses (which the Act is partly designed to reign in) as: "all expenditures incurred during an election period for the purpose of promoting or opposing directly or indirectly, the election of a candidate or that of the candidates of a party, including every person who subsequently becomes or who is likely to become a candidate, and includes all expenditures incurred before an election period for literature, objects or materials of an advertising nature used during the election period for such purposes."
• So the PPFA governs election expenses and also non-election-time advertising spending (s. 67(1) for the former and s.50(1) for the latter). What the Tories are doing is neither.

So, great work by the PCs. Campaigning on the taxpayers' dollars and flaunting both the law and common sense by calling the election a week prior to calling the election. They seem to be developing a certain Martin/Clintonesque penchant for "technical legality" and "plausible deniability". Bravo.

This "blatantly buy 'em" strategy failed the Lord Tories in the Saint John Harbour by-election last fall, so it is somewhat curious that they are back at it.

Both parties are simply attempting to convey their messaging. The Tories want you to know that they are interested in four more years of this dirty little quid pro quo and the Liberals want you to know that they are looking out for you. While the Tories are getting their message out via the government, the Liberals are getting their's out through the media. It's win-win, really (except for the other party, who has neither the civil service nor the print media and its beck and call).