DZSURDZSA: Alberta NDP’s smear tactics will backfire spectacularly, like they did in Ontario

There seems to be a troubling pattern emerging with the various provincial incarnations of the NDP.

Instead of offering viable and common sense solutions meant to help Canadians, the NDP have opted for a much darker and more malevolent road. It’s a road that borders on blackmail, libel and defamation.

Today, instead of cloak and dagger political assassinations, Conservative politicians have to watch their backs for an enemy even more subtle than the food-poisoners of the medieval courts.

Today’s political assassins are hired researchers and aides who are employed to scour newspaper archives and social media accounts in the hope of finding some incriminating piece of information which can then be tactfully employed to instigate a public relations execution.

The kind of tactics being employed by Alberta’s Rachel Notley and her sympathizers can be best described as a scorched-earth policy.

When confronted with the reality of a crushing defeat in the May election the Alberta NDP have only one option: tarnish the image of the UCP and eliminate trust in the political system as much as humanly possible.

However, this isn’t the first time that a provincial election was marred by muckraking and character assassination.

Aided and abetted by some of the same hyper-NDP platforms and outlets, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives faced similar circumstances and attacks.

Ahead of the election, a number of Ontario PC candidates were smeared by websites like PressProgress in an attempt to remove them from the proverbial chessboard.

Andrea Horwath’s NDP participated in and even propagated some of these claims. While Horwath surely expected to benefit from their “dirty politics”, she now has to face the music.

In one case, Horwath’s NDP allegedly propagated a “fake” email which purported to show PC candidate and Toronto policeman, Roshan Nallaratnam threatening a voter. Now, Nallaratnam is taking Horwath to court for libel and defamation in a $2.45 million lawsuit.

Despite the attacks in the NDP’s favour the party still failed to prevent Doug Ford from attaining a majority government.

It’s one thing for partisan platforms to partake in this behaviour but the sadder reality is that the mainstream media and in particular the CBC is more than happy to oblige with Notley’s crotch shot election strategy, but just like the Ford government was able to secure a majority, it is likely that the UCP will succeed in doing the same.