Liberal.ca is Now the Joke – Amateur hour at the Liberal Party Headquarters
December 15, 2009 · By Greg Farries
It appears the Liberal Party of Canada didn’t heed my advice I gave the Conservative Party of Canada back in 2008 – seriously, when are the national political parties in Canada going to stop letting juvenile partisan hacks be in control of their party websites.
In the doctored photograph – which you can view here, though the image may be disturbing to some readers – Mr. Harper’s face is photoshopped over that of Lee Harvey Oswald in the famous photo that captured Mr. Ruby shooting Mr. Oswald, after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
The fake shot was part of a contest launched by Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals, poking fun at Mr. Harper for dithering about whether attending the Copenhagen climate conference. The Liberals asked supporters to have some fun by putting the Prime Minister anywhere but in Copenhagen: “Your mission, should you accept it, is to pick an image that will haunt Stephen Harper forever,” the Liberal Party website says.
They offered prizes, including a t-shirt and coffee cup. Apparently, the Grits received about 75 submissions, including the assassination-attempt one.
This type of garbage belongs in the blogosphere, not on a national party website of a major G8 country. I’m beginning to understand the overall state of political party communications and management in Ottawa and I’m not overly surprised at the lack of professionalism that exists in our political parties. Considering that these types of antics seem to becoming the norm amongst our political elite, I’m willing to wager that pretty soon they will be accepted and embraced.
It’s no wonder we elect such losers to parliament, who would want to be part of team that would promote or condone such disrespectful and immature behaviour?
The weak apology is not sufficient, they need to go on national TV show what they did and apologize to all Canadians for making us look like third world uneducated idiots and to the PM on bended knee.
Just got this reply from the Liberal Party of Canada. I’ve emailed them quite a bit in the past, and this is the first time I’ve EVER gotten a responce from them:
Thank you for your email regarding the Liberal Party of Canada’s photo challenge.
The intent of the photo challenge was to engage Canadians concerned about the Prime Minister’s reluctance to attend the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
The photos posted to the website are user-generated, and do not always reflect the views of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Though we strove to screen submissions before posting, we have removed certain images that may have been offensive.
We apologize for any offence these images may have caused.
Yours sincerely,
Liberal Party of Canada
http://www.liberal.ca
Another day, another phony outrage.
For some weird reason I’m reminded of the CBC buying American programming to “compete” with the other networks. Why does the CBC need to compete? They’re a publicly funded broadcaster whose raison d’etre is to provide the kind of programming that wouldn’t keep a competitive broadcaster afloat.
Likewise, these party sites aren’t in competition with the rest of the web. It’s not like people say “Hmm, should I do my nightly lurking at ThePolitic.com, Cracked.com or Conservative.ca?” It’s an information site. You go there when you want to be sure that the party still actually exists or when you have specific inquiries about the party that you don’t need answered (because information sites never have the information you’re actually looking for.)
So this is from the party who 25 % of the Canadians want to run Canada? this is like something we’d do in Grade 5..(ie rude pictures of the teacher with stink lines, ect) I hope that the remaining 25 percent who vote for Liberals see this as it is…
And its not like they can hide from this…it was right on Liberal.ca..
what a bunch of jokers!
If this came from the Conservative website they would have defended the image and then ran constant attack ads on the Liberal Government instead to save their poll numbers.
This photo went far beyond offensive. If a kid in school made a picture like this but with his teacher or another student in the photo the child would be suspended (as they should) and subject to a psyohological evaluation.
The liberal party needs to fire someone for this despicible act and ensure a policy exists to prevent future incidents like this.
Oh and by the way CBC (Communist brotherhood of Canada) Shame on you for less than 30 seconds reporting this cowardly act to the Canadian people. I guess Iggy owes you one!
“Though we strove to screen submissions before posting, we have removed certain images that may have been offensive.
We apologize for any offence these images may have caused.”
hmmm, it would appear html tags are not permitted.
I intended to add a closing tag with the word “Story” in it.
I notice most posters chose to ignore that Greg had the same criticism for the conservative party last year even thought it was the first thing he wrote…
Photo contests belong on rickmercer’s website.
Thanks for pointing that out RD, perhaps I should have made it more clear!
I am not objecting specifically to the assassination photo – although I think it’s in incredibly bad taste – but rather the contest as a whole.
I think both parties need to grow up and knock of the childish online antics. I understand it’s pretty hard to manage the antics of individual members of parliament – they are only human, they do get carried away from time to time – but when it comes to an national party website, there should be a great deal more decorum exercised. These websites are supposed to be the public face of the political party and the membership as a whole.
Whenever something like this happens, I’m always embarrassed to be a member of one of these parties.
It also is a bit condescending. They’re trying to reign in the younger votes by acting immature instead of taking a stance on subjects relevant to young people.
Meh. It does not surprize me in the least. The picture is actually sort of funny.
If the blogosphere existed long ago, can we be certain that the court toadies surrounding Chretien, Mulroney, Trudeau, Diefenbaker, etc. etc. would not have entertained such garbage too? I am sure they would have done the same.
Agreed,
Political caricatures have existed since …well, they definitely predate photography. They used to have all kinds offensive images in political leaflets demonizing opponents.
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