New HarperPAC group to ‘respond from the right’ ahead of federal election campaign

The writ has yet to be dropped but the election rhetoric is already up and running.

Arm’s-length proponents and opponents of the Conservative government have both launched full bore into political advertising with months to go before an expected September start to a federal campaign.

The latest to enter the fray is the HarperPAC, a U.S.-style “political action committee.” The group officially launched and released its first ad this week on YouTube and social media, taking aim at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

Group spokesman Stephen Taylor says HarperPAC is a response to the rise of anti-Conservative groups like Engage Canada and Working Families.

“Being a political observer, seeing the rise of these sorts of groups on the left, I figured it was about time to organize something on the scale of these groups to respond from the right,” he tells Yahoo Canada News.

Taylor, the former director of the National Citizens Coalition – once helmed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself – says national radio and online ads will run from now at least until the election is called.

“We have a lot more room to operate. The period during the election is actually quite restrictive,” he says. “We’ve decided right now just to focus on the pre-writ period.”

HarperPAC says it will “fight back against the flood of big union money that has been earmarked to take down the Harper government.”

“Big union money” refers to Engage Canada, a similar group that was first out of the gate earlier this month with anti-Harper ads.

Engage Canada describes itself as a grassroots coalition of unnamed “progressive groups and organizations” formed to counter the Conservative cause. They do not endorse either the NDP or the Liberals.

No one from Engage Canada was immediately available to comment but the launch of HarperPAC did not go unnoticed.

The group used HarperPAC’s debut to appeal for donations themselves.

“HarperPAC, a wealthy new pro-Harper ‘political action committee’ launched today to protect Conservative special privilege,” the group posted on its Facebook page. “It’s being run by well-connected Conservative insiders who oppose bringing change to Ottawa.”

Proliferation of 3rd party spenders

The months ahead of an election call are basically a free-for-all for advertising spending and recent years have seen a proliferation of third-party spenders with deep pockets.

Working Canadians, which urges supporters to “fight back against union bosses,” launched radio ads last month attacking Trudeau.

Conservative Voice, spearheaded by the former executive director of the Conservative Party of Canada, has been appealing to business owners to build a war chest ahead of the federal election campaign.

“We will spend as much as we can leading up to the next writ to ensure that Canadians have the facts before the election is called,” the group says on its website.

Working Families, a coalition of unions including Unifor, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, International Union of Operating Engineers, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, spent almost $2.5 million on the Ontario provincial election last year.

Warning from Elections Canada

Under federal election rules, there is no spending cap until the writ is dropped but a caution from Elections Canada: there are three federal byelections currently underway in Ontario and any advertising that reaches the Ottawa West-Nepean, Peterborough or Sudbury ridings could run afoul of the rules.

“If you run ads that appear in those byelection ridings, you could be caught by the provisions of the Canada Elections Act,” Elections Canada spokesman John Enright tells Yahoo Canada News.

“So the caution is for anyone who is fielding ads in this pre-general election period, is if they’re advertising crosses into a byelection riding, they need to read very carefully.”

If the current government respects the Oct. 19 fixed date for the vote, the writ must be dropped by Sept. 13.