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ONTARIO ELECTION 1999 BACKGROUND PAPERS
While the election campaign began on May 5th, the real campaign of TV and radio advertising starts today and lasts until midnight Tuesday, June 1. There will be more ads and more money spent on them in this election than in any previous election in Ontario's history. The faces of Premier Mike Harris, and less frequently that of Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty and NDP Leader Howard Hampton, will be regular features during commercial breaks.
The central party usually bears almost the entire cost of a TV ad campaign. The leader's tour and polling usually eat up from 20% to 25% of campaign budgets. With the election spending limit raised and travel, polling and research costs now exempt from the spending cap, a lot of money is now available for television and radio advertising.
The Tories can be expected to easily spend more than $2 million in the 21-day television campaign. The Liberals and the NDP will both have a hard time spending up to the $4.2 million limit without going into debt, and so both parties will lag behind the blizzard of Conservative ads.
Judging by past performance, the Conservatives are firm believers in TV advertising as a way of communicating with, and changing, the minds of voters. It will be difficult to determine how much the Harris government has spent on ads over the past four years. The Liberals say that figure is close to $100-million, but it's hard to know how much of that is Liberal "spin".
When and where you buy ad time is an important factor. The cost of ads varies enormously, depending on the show and the station. Local news programs are generally preferred since they have good ratings and are cheaper to buy than spots on popular American imports. The 1995 Tory campaign bought a lot of ad time on smaller stations both in and around Toronto. In 1995, CKVR Barrie broadcasted only Tory ads for a total of 237 spots, because Conservatives either bought up all the available time or the other parties chose to spend their money elsewhere. The Tories also had far more ads than the other two parties on CHCH Hamilton and CHEX Peterborough. All three of these channels reach viewers in the urban belt around Toronto where the Tories took almost every seat.
The "tonnage" of advertising and the depth of a party's pockets are no substitute for an intelligently run campaign with a message that means something to voters. But parties without enough money are at a distinct disadvantage in crafting an appealing message and getting it widely heard.
For more information on fund-raising by Ontario's political parties see the paper by Robert MacDermid, Funding the Common Sense Revolutionaries: Contributions to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, 1995-97 on the website www.socialjustice.org.
Robert MacDermid teaches Political Science at York University and is the author of "TV Advertising Campaigns in the 1995 Ontario Election," in Revolution at Queen's Park: Essays on Governing Ontario, Sid Noel, Editor, (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1997). Fred Fletcher teaches political science at York University and is among the co-authors of Government and Politics in Ontario. He has written extensively on election campaigns.
For further information contact:
Professor Robert MacDermid
Professor Fred Fletcher
Sine MacKinnon
ONTARIO ELECTION 1999 BACKGROUND PAPERS
One of the most-often repeated distortions about political party financing in Ontario is the assumed trade-off between business donations to the Liberals and Conservatives and union contributions to the NDP. Politicians in Ontario, Premier Mike Harris included, often raise the fear of "massive union spending" that will undo their accomplishments. Citizens who know little about party finance always seem to "know" that union contributions to the NDP are about equal to corporate contributions to the other two parties.
Figures show that businesses give much more money to the Conservative and Liberal parties than unions give to the NDP. Even when the disparities between the incomes of union and top business leaders are noted, it is difficult to shake people from this misconception. It persists because it is constantly reinforced by conservative politicians and repeated uncritically by the media.
For more information on fund-raising by Ontario's political parties see the paper by Robert MacDermid, Funding the Common Sense Revolutionaries: Contributions to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, 1995-97 on the website www.socialjustice.org.
Robert MacDermid teaches Political Science at York University and is the author of "TV Advertising Campaigns in the 1995 Ontario Election," in Revolution at Queen's Park: Essays on Governing Ontario, Sid Noel, Editor, (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1997). Fred Fletcher teaches political science at York University and is among the co-authors of Government and Politics in Ontario. He has written extensively on election campaigns.
For further information contact:
Professor Robert MacDermid
Professor Fred Fletcher
Sine MacKinnon
ONTARIO ELECTION 1999 BACKGROUND PAPERS
BARRIERS TO THE STRATEGIST'S ORWELLIAN DREAMS:
Statistics Canada recently reported that while home Internet connections are growing, only about one-quarter of the population is connected. Still, that is a significant number of voters -- providing that a large number of them visit the websites. That is the second barrier. Figures on the number of people viewing party websites during elections are difficult to collect, difficult to obtain from the parties, and those figures that are floating about are difficult to believe.
The idea of a website "hit," meaning a visitor, is not a term with a technical meaning. Website usage is usually measured in bytes of downloaded files and requests for pages and the graphical files contained on them. Sources claim that the Conservative, Liberal and Reform party websites all received upwards of 100,000 hits per day during the 1997 election. Those figures are partly "spin" -- all parties want to be popular -- and partly the imprecision in measuring visits. It is difficult to believe that Canadians whose membership in political parties and attendance at political meetings is low are suddenly burning up the Internet to read the latest party propaganda. The real number of visitors is likely somewhere between one-half to one-tenth of the 100,000 figure. And some of these, of course, are political activists -- not the hoped-for undecided voters unsuspectingly surfing the web only to have a wave strand them on a political party website.
CONSERVATIVE, LIBERAL, AND NDP WEBSITES
The three main parties all have websites, a growing percentage of candidates are also using them, and Internet addresses are now appearing on campaign signs and literature.
The NDP campaign website is probably the least sophisticated. It features the usual -- party platform, the list of candidates and biographies, information about joining the campaign or party, and pictures of NDP Leader Howard Hampton campaigning.
The Liberal site has the same information, with the added innovation of the "Dalton Cam," a picture, updated every minute, of Liberal campaign headquarters that looks like an empty hallway or storage room. Hardly riveting viewing. The Liberals also perpetrated the first bit of Internet campaign skullduggery when they pre-empted the Tories by purchasing the web address MikeHarris.com and turning it into an anti-Harris website.
The Conservative website has all the bells and whistles, the best that money can buy. You can even see their television ads and hear their radio ads if you and your equipment are sophisticated enough to handle audio-visual files. You can download a Mike Harris screen saver, email your letter to the editor of a newspaper, donate money, or even buy "accessories" such as watches, cuff links and "I like Mike" pins and, even more appropriately, given the Premier's golfing background, you can buy a range of golf wear. You can send a virtual postcard with a Tory election slogan to a friend or an enemy or subscribe to tailor-made email lists for people who have particular issues or concerns, and an inclination to election-style propaganda.
Amidst all this neat stuff, though, is a significant error. The page that invites you to join the Tory party, enter your credit card number and make a donation, is not secure. That means anyone could intercept that information. Web pages that encode information will display a certificate indicating that private information will be secure. The Conservatives forgot that very important detail. In this case, you shouldn't trust the Tories with your money.
An interesting exception to the election advertising blackout that ended May 12: it allows a party to place its ads on the Internet before the campaign begins, provided they are not added to or altered in any way prior to the beginning of the official advertising period.
For more information on fund-raising by Ontario's political parties see the paper by Robert MacDermid, Funding the Common Sense Revolutionaries: Contributions to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, 1995-97 on the website www.socialjustice.org.
Robert MacDermid teaches Political Science at York University and is the author of "TV Advertising Campaigns in the 1995 Ontario Election," in Revolution at Queen's Park: Essays on Governing Ontario, Sid Noel, Editor, (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1997). Fred Fletcher teaches political science at York University and is among the co-authors of Government and Politics in Ontario. He has written extensively on election campaigns.
For further information contact:
Professor Robert MacDermid
Professor Fred Fletcher
Sine MacKinnon |
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