but, this doesn't make sense.

there are no spending limits before the election is called. if the conservatives have such an advantage, they ought to wait as long as possible to prevent the spending limits from kicking in. further, the other parties are more reliant on public spending. waiting as long as possible would starve them of funds.

but, if i was a liberal, i'd be pushing for the campaign to start as soon as possible to open up those public funds and put limits on what the conservatives can do. i'm calling shenanigans on this.

however, if this is more than a media circus and there is truth to the idea [i remain skeptical] then it indicates some desperation by the conservatives. if they saw themselves in a strong position, they would wait for the reasons i just stated.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-says-stephen-harper-changing-the-rules-to-hold-power-1.3175482

enrgyblogwalter@Jessica Murray
they want to stop PAC spending which is legal before the election at any amount but restricted when the writ is dropped. By forcing the parties to spend on ads it means the Connies hold the media advantage and will milk it

Jessica Murray@enrgyblogwalter
you don't think the conservatives have the corporate pac advantage over anything the ndp can squirm together with union funds?

harper has a history of kneejerk, irrational reactions. i've argued strenuously that you can't really analyze his actions through strict adherence to rational thinking. in that sense, it's sort of characteristic - but only if he sees himself in serious trouble.

NanaimoGuy@Jessica Murray
What the Conservatives care about is how much they can spend on TV ads in the last few days before election day. If the campaign in longer they have a higher limit on total spending. They are allowed under their new law to spend it at any time during the campaign. That includes the final week.

Jessica Murray@NanaimoGuy
that's still not really adding up, because the limits are the same across the parties once the election starts. the longer the conservatives have to save for ads, the longer the other parties have to save for ads.

the only actual advantage the conservatives can have in terms of funding is pre-election.

the bottom line is that the spending limits are the same for each party once the election starts. i suppose a fiscal conservative might naively think that their fundraising capacity is an advantage, but that's ignoring the ability of the other parties to borrow money. and, if you're specifically talking about an advertising blitz at the end of the election? the ndp is going to borrow until it's swimming. this might be the first, best, last chance it has at forming government. it's not going to blow that opportunity to balance it's budget.

so, there's not an actual advantage to the conservatives in doing this. they absolutely have an advantage in fundraising capacity, but if they're going to spread it out evenly then they're better off not capping themselves until the the end. and, if they're trying to blitz, well...that's the error of conservative "logic" acting against itself.

again: i think that if there's any truth to this, and i remain skeptical, then what they're trying to do is force the narrative into a campaign mode. harper tends to do a little better when dealing with concrete proposals than he does when dealing with abstract philosophical positions. the one policy advantage that the conservatives are going to have in this election is that their policies are clear and already written. but, if that's true then it's a trade-off: it's actually forfeiting their financial advantage (relatively more so than absolutely) in order to sharpen the message. and, it demonstrates a little bit of desperation

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Chris.S.PEI
Justin is absolutely right whether or not you support the LPC.

In a time of economic recession and budget deficit Harper has chosen to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to benefit himself. Harper, only in it for himself.

Jessica Murray@Chris.S.PEI
see, this is a really head-scratching thing to say and it's indicative of the amount of confusion that exists in canadian politics right now. with all due respect, your sloganeering suggests you're not really a real person. i apologize if i'm being presumptuous, but real people don't tend to walk around spouting catch phrases.

harper comes from a sort of anti-intellectual school of economics that has never been very mainstream in an academic sense but managed to build a considerable amount of political support in the 80s and 90s. he would agree that it's a bad idea to spend money in a recession. unfortunately, since the 90s, a lot of liberals would also agree with him. which is why i'm leaning towards the idea that you work for the liberal party.

but, generally, economists would argue that you want to spend money in a recession. this comes out of the understanding that recessions are largely created due to a lack of money circulating in the economy, and the government being the only way to get it going in a recession [because the recession hurts demand, acting as a disincentive for private sector spending]. even harper would agree that recessions are solved by incentivizing spending, he just argues that a better way to get people to spend more is through tax cuts to corporations. this is that anti-intellectual school of economics, which has no empirical support and doesn't even make any sense when you sit down and work it out logically. tax cuts on the supply side don't incentivize spending. tax cuts to consumers may help a little, but it's the kind of thing you do in a structurally healthy economy - not one ravaged by job losses from free trade and mired in personal debt. serious recessions require government spending, which necessarily means you have to go into deficit. this isn't a negative thing. although increasing corporate tax rates would be a good start to balancing the situation a little, and increasing revenue when the situation picks up.

it's a sort of a rabbit hole situation, because liberals used to understand this and built policies around it. but, all of the evidence seems to be that they don't understand this anymore, and have drunk the anti-intellectual kool-aid that argues against deficits in recessions. and, it's not a coincidence that they're seeing this huge collapse in support amongst educated voters, who understand the economics of the situation well enough to realize that they're pushing the same broken neo-liberal economic model that the conservatives are.

liberal party voters have traditionally supported deficit spending. and, if the liberal party no longer does, then they're going to switch to a party that does.