With a federal election on the horizon, political parties are releasing new advertising campaigns to sway Canadian voters in their favour.
Attack advertising is a popular tactic political parties use during an election campaign, according to experts like and Thomas Flanagan, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary who said “I think you’ll probably see even more negative advertising than usual in this campaign, but most of it will probably be tied to President Trump in one way or another.”
The Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada have both released attack ads recently. U.S. President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff announcements are taking centre-stage in messaging as the parties jostle to promise a solution to the trade war.
One Conservative video about Carney claims ‘Trump seizes on weakness’ before claiming ‘Nobody’s weaker’ than Mark Carney. “The Conservative ads argue that Mark Carney will be unable to stand up to Trump,” Flanagan said.
Analysis of Recent Attack Ads
In the past few months, the Conservative Party has released six attack ads on its official YouTube channel—one targeting the New Democratic Party and the other five focused on the Liberals.
During the campaign for a new Liberal Party leader, four were made against former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney and one focused on former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland. Lori Turnbull, professor of political science at Dalhousie University, credited this to Carney being the frontrunner in the leadership race (he has since become the leader of the federal Liberal Party).
Throughout PM Justin Trudeau’s time as Liberal Party leader, the Conservatives focused their attack ads on him. “For a while, he was the least popular politician, and the conservatives were focused on ways in which people’s cost of living had gone up, and they were trying to blame it on Trudeau,” Turnbull said. “So whether it was because of the carbon tax or because of the cost of groceries, they were blaming any raise of cost on Trudeau.”
The carbon tax was heavily criticised and is being linked to the entire Liberal Party. Flanagan said, “What you’re seeing is a line of attack that has been prepared for a long time, being refashioned to include Carney, to argue that he is just another incarnation of Trudeau, and he will pursue similar policies, maybe under a different name.”
Carney has since said publicly that they intend to repeal the carbon tax, influencing the Conservatives’ more recent messaging to focus on other issues.
The attack ads also emphasize that Carney has never held elected office, “focusing on Carney’s past as a businessman, his business dealings, his business connections that they’re trying to allege will put him in a conflict of interest,” Turnbull said.
Historically, the Liberals have released fewer attack ads than the Conservatives, according to Turnbull, who attributes this to cost. “For a while, they were not doing the same volume of advertising at all as the Conservatives, and I think largely because they don’t have the same financial resources to do it.”
The Liberal Party has two attack ads on YouTube, both released in the past few weeks. They target Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal Conservative Party.
A recent video compares Trump’s way of speaking to Poilievre’s, featuring a montage of clips in which each repeats the same statements, including ‘fake news’, ‘woke censorship’, and ‘radical left’.
Their other ad targets Poilievre with clips of him calling Canada broken. Since he has been the Conservative Party leader since 2022, extensive footage is available for the Liberals to use in advertising.
Another ad uploaded to the official Facebook page for the Liberal Party focuses on Poilievre’s healthcare plans. It claims that he would increase the cost of prescriptions and make the Canadian healthcare system closer to the American one. If elected as PM, Poilievre has committed to repealing the Pharmacare program.
Effectiveness of attack ads
Multiple studies have examined the effectiveness of attack ads, with each offering different conclusions. However, they are proven to generate emotion among voters.
These campaigns have also been shown to strengthen party loyalty and increase donations, according to Turnbull. “The Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre have raised a lot of money on attack ads against Justin Trudeau.”
For undecided or new voters, attack ads can promote strong ideas designed to influence them. “In a world where a lot of people don’t pay attention to politics, that’s why the parties do it. It’s an easy message to get your mind around if you weren’t already thinking about it,” Turnbull said.
Other Parties
Smaller parties typically produce fewer attack ads, if any. Flanagan also attributes this to cost.
“The NDP is very short of money; they just recently paid off their loan from the last election. So they just barely have enough money for Mr. Singh to be able to travel on the leader’s tour,” Flanagan said. This applies to the Bloc Québécois, Green Party, and parties without seats in Parliament.
It is unlikely these parties will produce many national campaigns or attack ads. Instead, they typically prioritize money in the ridings they have a chance to win.
“They would see their winnable ridings as mostly in central parts of large cities like Toronto and Vancouver. They will end up spending their limited resources on ads that appeal to voters in those areas, which might be different from a national audience,” Flanagan said about the NDP.
The Green Party will also concentrate on key ridings where it hopes to gain or maintain official party status, which requires 12 seats (they currently hold two).
The Bloc Québécois, running only in Quebec, will not produce national advertising, according to Flanagan.
For the Conservatives and Liberals, Turnbull says that attacking smaller parties is not worth the cost. “You run the risk that voters will start looking at that party if they never thought about it before. If it’s a small party, then leave them alone.”
Looking Ahead
Political parties are expected to release more attack ads leading up to election day and both Turnbull and Flanagan predict more of what has been produced so far.
On Trump’s influence on Canadian attack ads, Flanagan said, “That’s going to be a big theme of the advertising because that’s emerged as the major issue.”As campaigning continues, Turnbull encourages voters to research candidates and parties. “They’re meant to persuade; they’re meant to affect you. They’re not really meant to inform you. And if you want information, you’ll have to dig more deeply than [attack ads].”
Jasmin Murray is an exchange student from New Zealand for W2025.
