Party platforms online

This post has been updated. Again.

With less than a week to go before election day, the Conservatives are releasing their party platform - it was to be released following leader Stephen Harper's speech to the Empire Club of Canada and the Canadian Club in Toronto - but so far, no sign of it, and now the Conservative.ca website seems to be experiencing some trouble, so watch this space. - called The True North Strong and Free - is now available here in PDF form - but caution that the site is still having trouble.

As the prime minister has alluded to recently, the platform does not represent a major departure from the "modest" announcements of the past few weeks. But there are some new items: more money for technology and innovation funds that will help hard-hit manufacturers, and a decision to drop controversial changes to the television and film tax credits that had brought accusations of censorship from filmmakers.

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The Liberals released their full election platform Sept. 22. The previously announced Green Shift is still there, along with details on the party's other major campaign announcements: increased infrastructure spending; plans to increase day care funding to the provinces; extending coverage for drugs for catostrophic illness; changes to funding for post-secondary students; and increased funding for arts and women's groups. The platform, titled Richer, Fairer, Greener, costs out the Liberal promises within a balanced budget. The full 72-page platform document is here - though demand must be high (among media?) because the Liberals' site has slowed significantly.

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The NDP released their platform Sept. 28, a Sunday, and received a good amount of Monday-morning press for the platform's previously-unannounced promise of a new child benefit for low-income families - up to $400 a month per child for children under 18. The 46-page platform document - which by the cover could be called the "Orange Book" - vows to return the corporate tax rate to 22.12% (the level before the Martin government) and recover unpaid corporate taxes in order to increase social spending while maintaining a balanced buget.

The platform touches on many of the issues that have played out in headlines leading up to the election: food safety, regulation of the banking and finance sector, consumer protection and the doctor shortage, as well as the NDP's core values: affordable housing, supports for workers and income supports. The party includes "explanatory tables" to support its math.

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The Greens released their "Looking Forward" platform online Sept. 17. The platform, which goes well beyond the party's environmental image, includes a promise to raise the GST by one cent and pass that money on to cities; a plan for investment in "green" industries; plus policy on health care and measures to address poverty. The Greens' platform launch included a separate website called www.votefortomorrow.ca that lays out the highlights of the platform, and the full 160-page platform document as a PDF. The party has also released a budget plan (both a snapshot PDF version and a longer, detailed document). The Green budget promises a balanced budget but no reduction in the federal debt over the next four years.

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Rumour control

The Green party issued this press release this afternoon:

Media Release
September 23, 2008

Elizabeth May clears the air

OTTAWA - Contrary to rumours circulating on the internet, Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada did not appear at a Hezbollah event two years ago.

August 12, 2006, Ms. May did speak at a peace rally in Toronto along with Jewish and Arab Canadians to call for an end to the violence then raging in the Middle East.

In her remarks she strongly condemned Hezbollah for launching rocket attacks in to Israel as well as Israel for the bombing of Lebanon.

The Green Party of Canada supports peaceful resolution acceptable to all parties in the Middle East.

Update: The parties' social networking

Time to update our site audit chart, listing the social networking offerings of the four major national parties.

The Liberals got their online act together in the second week, adding Twitter and MySpace pages and expanding their use of Flickr and YouTube. But it is the NDP that reaping the greatest rewards from these tools, adding more than 2,600 "supporters" in Facebook in the past week to the Conservatives 1,550. The Liberals and the Greens each gained about 650 supporters over the same period.

The NDP also gained about 350 Twitter "followers" to the Conservatives' 240. The Liberals are new to the Twitter game, adding 292 followers in their first week. Based on those numbers, I suspect that most (for all the parties) are insiders.

If the Greens have started using Flickr, Twitter or Friendfeed to get their message across, they aren't effectively promoting that on their website, hence all that white space under the Greens. But they are making effective use of YouTube now to share videos of Elizabeth May's campaign speeches on their party website, adding five new videos in the past day. And if you search hard enough on YouTube, you'll find their page.

Finally, the Conservatives show no signs of stopping on the electronic campaign trail, adding a Digg page to their site links this week. No friends there yet, but the campaign is still young.

Site or tool	Conservative	Liberal	NDP	Green
Facebook (# of supporters)	14,673	13,155	17,277	3,158
Flickr	Yes	Yes	Yes
Friendfeed	Yes		Yes
MySpace (# of friends)	Yes (45)	Yes (37)
RSS feeds	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Twitter (# of followers)	Yes (693)	Yes (292)	Yes (786)*
YouTube (# of videos)	Yes (16)	Yes (51)	Yes (55)	Yes (17)

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Greens angered over 'stupid' YouTube video

(This post has been updated. And again)

Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor is defending a video he produced that has upset the The Green Party.

As The Tyee reported on its blog The Hook, the Greens allege that audio from TVO's The Agenda with Steve PaikenPaikin was spliced in the video to make it sound like leader Elizabeth May called Canadians "stupid," and have threatened a Western blogger called Buckdog who posted the video with "legal proceedings" if he didn't remove the video (which he did). The blogger has reproduced the email exchange with the Greens' communication director here.

Taylor stands by the accuracy of the video.

In any case, comments to the Green party's own blog question the party's decision to go heavy over the video.

UPDATE: According to The Inside Agenda, the official blog of The Agenda with Steve PaikenPaikin, TVO director of corporate relations Jill Javet issued this statement today to counter claims by the Greens that TVO agreed the clip was altered:

TVO confirms that the audio of the clip in question is intact. As such, TVO is not and will not be pursuing legal action of any kind on this matter.

The TVO blog also notes that Green Party leader Elizabeth May will be on The Agenda with Steve PaikenPaikin tonight (Sept. 12, 8 p.m.) - and promises to ask her about her earlier, controversial appearance and this week's legal "kerfuffle." Now that's must-see TV.

UPDATEST: According to the Inside Agenda, the Greens will apologize to Buckdog and won't be pursuing legal action - claiming it was all a misunderstanding about how YouTube works.

MORE: The original clip, courtesy TVO, puts context to May's earlier comment. Judge for yourself.

AND...: More on May by Agenda host Steve PaikenPaikin.

Conservatives most turned on

For the record, here's a quick survey of the social network and Web 2.0 offerings on the four major national parties' websites - all linked accordingly for your convenience.

The Conservatives, with the broadest array of social networking and web tools, are clearly reaching out to electronically-linked voters, followed closely by the NDP. The Liberal party's efforts on Facebook and YouTube look almost quaint by comparison.

More observations follow after the chart:

Site or tool	Conservative	Liberal	NDP	Green
Facebook (# of supporters)	13,014	12,511	14,620	2,555
Flickr	Yes		Yes
Friendfeed	Yes
MySpace (# of friends)	Yes (24)
RSS feeds	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Twitter (# of followers)	Yes (452)		Yes (439)*
YouTube (# of videos)	Yes (16)	Yes (29)	Yes (34)

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* Bonus marks for NDP: They have a separate Twitter feed (56 followers) en francais.
Note: Numbers quoted above are as of Sept. 10, 2008 @ 9 p.m.

FACEBOOK FAVOUR: As you can see in the chart, NDP Jack Layton is the most popular Canadian politician in terms of Facebook supporters at 14,620 - that puts him just behind Ted Kennedy and just ahead of Al Franken in Facebook's list of politicians.

Stephen Harper is next, sandwiched between former Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giulianai and Fred Thompson; Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is not far behind (between Thompson and the late Lebanese politician Gebran Tueni) and Greens leader Elizabeth May checks in well back of the others (between Iowa Gov. Chet Culver and the late Chilean leader Salvador Allende).

FRIENDFEED: One other note. . . if you simply can't afford to miss a single party announcement but don't have the time to become a friend/follower/support . . . the Conservatives' Friendfeed page pulls together all of their social networking and online sharing feeds in one place.

THIS JUST IN.... An update to this post can be found here.

It's a two-way highway

Despite carefully stage-managed public appearances and news conferences in real locations like warehouses and suburban kitchens, it didn't take long for the online campaign to grab the spotlight.

The parties are scrambling to tap every social-networked, viral video advantage they can, no doubt with visions of harnessing the kind of online following that helped propel Barack Obama to victory in the Democratic primaries earlier this year. Online tools not even on the public's radar during the last election - Facebook and Twitter to name but two - look conspicuous by their absence from party websites this time around. It's one thing to hit the trail without a campaign plane or a full slate of nominated candidates - but minus a Flash-enabled website? How could you possibly be ready to govern a dominion of 33 million people?

On Day 3 of the election campaign, the online campaign became the story in three key fronts:

1. Attack! Attack! Retreat! Retreat!
Is it any surprise the first misstep of the campaign came courtesy of an over-zealous worker on a Conservative party website? No party has been as aggressive in using the online space as the Conservatives. Even while holding the reins of power (albeit in a minority government), the party regularly produced gleefully satirical Web ads lampooning Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's mannerisms and policies, in a style reminicent of Frank magazine. Remember such hits (and misses) as the rapping duo of Dion and Ignatieff, or that funny little grease spot?

Those were just the warm-up to notaleader.ca, an impressively produced, amusing and - as it turned out - puffin-poop-laced Conservative site that ultimately forced the campaigning Prime Minister to interrupt his first policy announcement press conference to apologize to his rival. The puffin droppings (pictured above) were removed, but the site itself remains up and at 'em.

So, will "puffin-gate" spell the end to these online attack ads? Not likely, when they are so cheap and easy to produce - and when you can simply pull them down and blame one of the Web geeks when they backfire.

2. Image makeover
Separate, branded websites devoted to a party leader, distinct from the party, aren't new - the leaders in Ontario's election last fall were featured in chatty, informal videos on sites that played up their first names. But the launch of the Liberals' This Is Dion site made news today for offering hitherto unknown insights on the Opposition Leader's love of fishing and outdoor activities. This look at the private Dion is presented through videos and photo galleries in an online environment designed to resemble a lovingly appointed desktop in a rustic cottage. The homey feel is the antithesis of the Conservative attack site - but which one will appeal more to the online reader is hard to tell.

3. The Great Debate
The other media controversy of the day was left over from the day before - the exclusion of Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from the televised leaders' debates. Here is where the media shift brought about by the Internet may be most clear - in excluding May from that ultra-Establishment forum, the parties and networks unleashed an online debate not only among commentators on news websites but on the party's own social network sites that are supposed to make them seem so in touch. NDP Leader Jack Layton's Facebook page, unlike the one maintained for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has a "Wall" where the public can post messages - and by midday Tuesday the exercise in online democracy was in full swing, with dozens of messages critical of the NDP's decision to keep May out. Facebook sites for the Liberal and Conservative party - nominally "unofficial" but endorsed by key MPs from their respective parties - were similarly deluged with comments, both for and against the decision.

Is it a hopeful sign that arguably the most effective demonstration of the Internet's role in the campaign at this early stage was the one that allowed voters to talk back to the politicians?