I was going to do a post about this campaign sign from Bloc candidate Vivian Barbot being up a day before the federal election was called, but Kate beat me to it (with the same candidate), and had a follow-up pointing out that there’s nothing illegal about this.
So instead I’ll contribute this, taken a day later:
well, the conservatives had a tv commercial (the “ordinary folk” supporting Harper type of thing) that ran for a good week before the elections. Nothing illegal there either. Even if it did end with a young woman saying “I’m voting for the first time and I’ll vote for Stephen Harper.”
Though it does bring to mind the question of funding and spending: these commercials having been done outside the election period, they are not counted as part of the campaign budgets. Since the Harper government knew when it would launch the elections, they probably thought it would be smart to spend before the critical launch date. Just to make sure they would avoid those annoying public audits.
I think electoral law should count anything that refers to voting directly as part of electoral spending, wouldn’t you?
The Bloc signs in my riding went up a day early too, preceded by a few hours by NDP signs… most of which mysteriously disappeared between last night and this morning. Hm, I wonder how that happened?