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The "No STVs" Advertising. For real?

Submitted by Dan Grice on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 13:54

I just saw my first advertisement on TV from Bill Tieleman, David Schreck and the opponents of electoral reform.

At first, when they published it online a few days ago, I assumed it was some sort of joke. I still kind of think it must be some sort of "interim bluff" with their real advertisements coming a few days from now as the quality on this is low even by Schreck and Tieleman's usual crud.

Take a look for yourself:

Now, obviously, the plurality hacks and I differ greatly on which values matter in democracy. They believe in a strong central government and I believe that government should be cooperative and represent as many people as possible.

However, one would think that they could at least be able to keep their arguments to some semblance of reality. Instead, they have decided to put together a video with a bunch of sound and images and captions that are way out of left field.

The ad begins with a woman talking about how STV would be complicated, and then tries to claim that each riding would have 7 representatives and over 300,000 voters. While this is misleading, as only one district will hit 7 MLAs, it is the text on screen that is really off the mark:

"Downtown Candidates Will Dominate the STV."

Really, what is that supposed to mean? First of all, I don't even think that sentence makes any sense. "The STV". "Downtown Candidates". Are they trying to say that the 86,000 people in Victoria (they are showing a picture of Victoria) will some how out power the other 250,000 residents of the capital region?

Next, they claim that STV will remove local representation. While they are saying this they flash up the following signs.

Kamloops: Your MLA Gone. (Kamloops actually has two MLAs)

Penticton: Your MLA Gone.

Whoa! Aren't those they two largest towns in each of their districts? Didn't they just claim five seconds earlier that the larger towns would dominate?

Lastly, my favourite part of their commercial. The exploding ballot while they claim that voters will never know where their ballot went.

Come on Bill and Dave, is this what the referendum is coming down to. Exploding ballots?

Comments

Schreck's lost credibility

Submitted by Chrystal Ocean (not verified) on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 13:23.

Several things struck me about the ad:

i) the use of "first past the post," a term which Schreck or Tieleman (can't remember which) complained biased people against the current system.
ii) the overall negativity of the ad, which only serves to support one of the arguments for reform, that of reducing divisive politicking.
iii) the woman in the ad, who doesn't seem to be convinced of the statements she's uttering.