Tax dollars fuel well-crafted propaganda

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/07/2023 (848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson is supposed to stop using tax dollars for government advertising two months before the provincial election, scheduled for Oct. 3.

However, she can keep the ad machine going if she wants to, well into the election campaign — thanks to changes her government made to election finance laws in 2021.

The Tories have been going gangbusters, promoting almost every aspect of government operations in recent weeks, from tax cuts and rebates to how the province is “healing” health care, collaring criminals, spending on infrastructure and creating child care spaces.

The ads (paid for by taxpayers) and the new spending come in the wake of six years of government cuts and funding freezes that have decimated many of those services.

Government is using all the mediums: billboards, broadcast, internet and print to disseminate pre-election propaganda. There is no sign of letting up.

Under the province’s Election Financing Act, government is prohibited from advertising or publishing “any information about its programs or activities” in the last 60 days before election day. That means government advertising and announcements are supposed to stop by Aug. 4.

The reason: to prevent the governing party, which has control of the public treasury, from using tax dollars to gain an unfair advantage over opponents during an election.

However, the Tories changed the law two years ago to create a loophole.

They are now legally permitted to continue government advertising — right up until election day — as long as the ads began before the blackout period.

The changes may not seem drastic on the surface. However, they provide government with far more flexibility when it comes to advertising during a writ period or closer to it.

For starters, the Tories reduced the so-called “blackout period” to 60 days (from 90) before election day. That allows them to advertise and make new government announcements until Aug. 4, instead of July 4, this year.

Under the previous rules, virtually all government announcements and ads would have stopped this week. The premier would not have been permitted to use tax dollars to pump up her government’s tires, like she did Thursday with her so-called “downtown safety” announcement in Winnipeg.

More significantly, the Tories expanded the definition of what type of government advertising can continue into an election period. Under the previous legislation, that was limited to Crown corporations, such as Manitoba Hydro and Manitoba Public Insurance.

The Tories changed it to include “the usual operations of a government department,” which means all government activity, from health care and education to justice and family services.

They can advertise whatever they want, using tax dollars, as long as the ads began before the blackout period.

The Tories won’t be able to take out new ads during the 60-day period, but they can keep the existing ones. Whether they plan to do so is unknown. They haven’t said.

If they do, it wouldn’t be without some political risk. Using tax dollars to indoctrinate voters during an election would be morally reprehensible and could backfire.

Alternatively, the Stefanson government could keep the ads in place until the premier drops the writ, expected Sept. 5. Doing so would still be unethical, but slightly less so.

Either way, there is no moral dilemma in the mind of Stefanson to use tax dollars to brainwash people into thinking hers is a caring, compassionate government taking “concrete action” and getting “real results” for the people.

She can’t run on her record. Her government has left in its wake a magnitude of carnage and destruction so damaging to the public good any attempt to showcase it would guarantee electoral defeat.

Using tax dollars to create a fantasy parallel universe, and hoping enough voters (particularly in Winnipeg) buy it, is the premier’s only hope for re-election.

Desperate times call for desperate measures: if it means tricking voters with their own money, so be it. The alternative — the shortest stint in the premier’s office by any first minister in modern Manitoba history (not including Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen’s mini caretaker term as premier in 2021) — is unthinkable.

Will enough voters buy it? That’s hard to tell in an era where so few people pay close attention to politics, particularly at the provincial level, that many have trouble discerning between fact and fiction.

The latest public opinion poll shows the Tories headed for defeat. However, it also reveals a level of momentum the party didn’t have six months ago — no doubt the result of aggressive, taxpayer-funded advertising.

Well-crafted propaganda can fool a lot of people. The Tories are not above exploiting that as far as necessary to maintain their grip on power.

It’s something they planned for two years ago.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca