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Stephane Dion raises expectations of his debate performances

More than a year ago Stephane Dion predicted that he will be victorious in both the French and English leaders debate that Canadians will watch tonight and tomorrow night on the television networks.

Also, on the popular French-language show Tout le Monde en Parle just a few days ago on September 28th, the following exchange took place,

GUY A. LEPAGE: Les débats des chefs en français et en anglais auront lieu les 1er et 2 octobre prochain. On vous reproche beaucoup de ne pas bien maîtriser la langue de Shakespeare. C’est votre premier débat comme chef libéral. “Aren’t you afraid that your lack of knowledge of the English could be a handicap in this campaign?”

STÉPHANE DION: Yes, je n’ai pas compris. Non, ce que je dirais là-dessus, c’est que moi je dis la vérité bien mieux en français et en anglais que Stephen Harper et pour ça je vais gagner les débats. (“On that, I would say that I speak the truth better in French and in English than Stephen Harper and it’s for that reason that I will win the debates”)

Stephane Dion has confirmed his debate prediction that he made over one year ago; the Liberal leader predicts he will win both English and French language debates. Now that Dion has set the bar high for himself, should he fail to win both debates will the press note that he failed to meet his expectations? Will the Liberal war-room fool anyone when they claim Dion “clearly won tonight’s debate”? What are you expecting from tonight’s French language debate?

Liberal campaign exudes confidence, doesn’t it?

Here is Liberal Senator David Smith, the co-chair of the Liberal campaign, on whether or not he thinks Stephane Dion will be Canada’s next Prime Minister.

Ouch. David Smith seems to think that Dion’s chances are the stuff of fairy tales and make-believe.

Anthony Rota’s controversial ad

Why is it controversial? The ad was published in the North Bay Nugget on September 23rd, 2008 (during the writ period) and it doesn’t appear to contain the words “approved by the official agent for Anthony Rota”. If my eyes do not deceive me, this would be in contravention of s.320 and s.321 of the Elections Act.

Those sections are,

320. A candidate or registered party, or a person acting on their behalf, who causes election advertising to be conducted shall mention in or on the message that its transmission was authorized by the official agent of the candidate or by the registered agent of the party, as the case may be.

321. (1) No person shall knowingly conduct election advertising or cause it to be conducted using a means of transmission of the Government of Canada.

(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), a person includes a group within the meaning of Part 17.

This appears to be an ad authorized by Anthony Rota as an MP. If that’s the case, he’s advertising himself (he’s now a candidate) using his MP office.

UPDATE: Rota’s campaign explains that the ads were bought prior to the writ drop. According to them, this makes it legal. Since Rota couldn’t have known when the writ period was going to be, this is an understandable oversight. However, according to my reading of the law, the act is clear on these two sections. Rota should have cancelled the ads. I wouldn’t accuse Rota of cheating because of this. Instead, I’d chalk it up to an unfortunate coincidence that could be interpreted as a violation of the Act.

Elections Canada disagrees and claims that the content doesn’t appear to be election advertising. Then again, Elections Canada is quite a subjective arbiter on what constitutes election advertising and in who’s name elections advertising is done (MP/candidate and federal/local). I suppose the Prime Minister now has the green light to circumvent the spending limit by buying the back page of every single paper in the country (with taxpayer money, natch) to say “Hi, I’m the PM” and as long as he doesn’t say “Vote for me, I’m the PM”, it’s all good.