Negative Trudeau ads denounced by 3 New Brunswick MPs

Three New Brunswick MPs are criticizing the Conservative Party’s aggressive advertising campaign against Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

Conservative MP Mike Allen said the anti-Trudeau ads are not his style and he said he finds many political attack ads "juvenile."

"I've looked at some of the ads going back as far as 1993, some of the ads that have been used by all the parties during the last number of elections that I've run in and I find some of them, actually, odd, and a little bit childish," Allen said.

"But at the end of the day, I guess parties are using them because they've proven themselves to be effective and it's a way to use their money to get their message out unfiltered."

Allen notes negative ads have been effective against former Liberal leaders Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion, but he said it's not his style.

Allen said he will not send out any of the anti-Trudeau flyers to his constituents.

"If I’m going to use something in my riding, I’m going to do a compare and contrast to the policy positions of the parties and the policy positions of the leader. I think in my riding I think people would say, ‘OK that is fair ball,'" he said.

The Conservative Party created the flyers designed to critique Trudeau’s judgment and work experience. The tagline to the ads is: "He’s in way over his head."

Allen made the comments on a political panel with NDP MP Yvon Godin and Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc.

Opposition MPs denounce ads

Godin says negative ads did not work against his party's leader Thomas Mulcair.

He said his party doesn't use them.

"I'm not in favour of attacking the person himself. I want more a leader to be able to show a vision," he said.

LeBlanc, a long-time friend of Trudeau and an early supporter of his leadership bid, said he does not think the latest attack ads are going to work.

"I think in Justin’s case it won’t work. Like the NDP, we’ve decided not to go negative. We have decided Canadians are fed up with that," he said.

"They want people to talk positively about their own ideas and in fact to talk positively about ideas that other parties have."

The Liberals released a series of ads 10 days after the Conservative attacks ads first appeared and featured Trudeau offering a "positive" message.

Trudeau said on April 24 that an advertising campaign was always part of the Liberal post-leadership plan, but acknowledged some surprise at the speed and intensity of the personal attacks the Tories threw at him.