LILLEY: Poilievre's Conservatives continue to dominate Trudeau Liberals in ad wars

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Call it battle of the summertime ad campaigns.

Both the federal Liberals and their Conservative counterparts have launched new multimedia campaigns attacking each other this week. The main difference is, the Conservative campaign has money behind it while the Liberal one does not.

The Liberals launched a website on Monday, the day the whole world was talking about Joe Biden stepping down as the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. The website, according to the Liberals, details 20 years of Pierre Poilievre’s record using short video clips and asks visitors to the site to rank his worst moments by clicking on a clown face.

The website would have you believe that tens of thousands of individual Canadians have already ranked Poilievre’s records based on the scores on the website, but the videos, which are embedded via YouTube, have mostly only been seen by a few hundred people.

Liberals may be sharing this material online with other Liberals but to make an impact, you need to actually be seen by people, voters, who aren’t already backing your cause.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are launching their second ad campaign of the last few months with new spots running on television and in paid digital ad spots that target Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax.

A 30-second version of the ad shows a cut out of Trudeau in a wet suit carrying his surfboard as the narrator says that as Canadians embark on a summer vacation, they have to take Trudeau with them.

“His out-of-control taxes making food more expensive, again!” the ad says.

As the ad lays out all the ways Trudeau’s carbon tax is driving up the cost of living, the narrator reminds you that Trudeau is always there.

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“Pierre Poilievre’s Common Sense Conservatives want to axe the tax. Let’s dump the extra baggage and give Canadians a summer break,” the narrator says as the ads ends.

It’s short, sweet, easy to understand and doesn’t look like a juvenile prank dreamt up by campus club members of the party, which is what the Liberal offering looks like. The Liberal website will make their partisan supporters giggle, they will high five each other at pointing out Poilievre’s problematic statements and gaffes from the past, but they won’t reach a single new voter.

Pointing out Poilievre’s past statements was something the Liberals should have started doing in September 2022 immediately after Poilievre won the Conservative leadership. The reasons they didn’t then and the Liberals aren’t producing slick ads like the Conservatives now are the same — they simply don’t have the money.

Failing to target Poilievre with a real and professionally run ad campaign after he won the leadership will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in Canadian political history. Poilievre has been able to define himself with voters and use the Conservative Party’s significant war chest to buy ads painting himself in a positive light and Trudeau in a negative one.

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Last month, the Conservatives ran ads during the Stanley Cup Finals targeting Trudeau’s record on homelessness and encampments in parks. The video in the ad was devastating, showing images of parks and streets before and after the encampment while Trudeau’s voice could be heard saying, “It’s time for a change in this country my friends, a real change.”

One thing that hasn’t changed lately is the polling for the two parties — Poilievre’s Conservatives continue to hold a lead of between 15 and 22 points over Trudeau’s Liberals.

This ad campaign from the Conservatives will help remind people why they no longer like the Trudeau government, the website from the Liberals will entertain bored political staffers.

blilley@postmedia.com