Election 2015: Attacks ads, wedge issues do little for 'difficult issues'

Attack ads and contentious debates are not going to solve the "difficult issues" facing the country, says the head of an organization devoted to citizen engagement, who is calling on candidates to focus on "thoughtful public policy issues" in the waning days of the federal election campaign.

• Advance poll turnout up from last election, Elections Canada says

Toronto writer Christopher Holcroft, founder of Civil Election, a non-partisan group aimed at fostering civil public discourse, says the campaign's focus on wedge issues and personal attacks is creating a climate of fear and divisiveness that diverts attention away from important issues.

"Certainly, there's a conventional wisdom among the political class right now that attack ads work," Holcroft told CBC's Metro Morning on Monday.

"That's a very short-term view of government. Government and public policy work is very difficult work. It's the purview of the thoughtful and the patient, not the vapid and the rash."

Focus on 'thoughtful public policy issues'

While voting in advance polls over the Friday and Saturday of this Thanksgiving weekend was up 34 per cent over the first two days of advance polling in 2011, fewer Canadians overall have been casting ballots in the last couple of decades.

About 61 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2011 federal election, according to Elections Canada, compared to 75 per cent in in 1984 and 1988, and nearly 80 per cent in 1962.

In addition to the slump in voter turnout, fewer Canadians are joining political parties or volunteering with local campaigns, Holcroft said.

Attack ads and wedge issues, such as the debate over the niqab, will do little to reverse these trends, he said.

"It sets a very, very bad precedent for how we're going to move forward as a country, how we're going to deal with some of these difficult issues," Holcroft told Metro Morning.

"An attack ad isn't going to do anything to help resolve the climate change crisis, it's going to do nothing to help the one-in-seven children that live in poverty. And what we should be doing, and what we would encourage the political parties to do, is what many, many Canadians ask for: focus on what you will do, focus on serious, thoughtful public policy issues."

'Unprecedented number of attack ads'

In September, Civil Election issued a report based on a survey of 25 civil society groups that work in a range of public policy fields. The survey found that the vast majority of these groups expected a more negative campaign than in 2011, many expected "fewer opportunities for the substantive exchange of ideas," and most were concerned about an unfair election.

The campaign has seen an "unprecedented number of attack ads," Holcroft said, as well as reports across the country from ridings where candidates refused to participate in local debates.

"The very definition of a wedge issue is to divide Canadians, and it does nothing to foster the kind of inclusive society and the inclusive democracy that we should be focusing on," Holcroft told Metro Morning.

"And it's very similar to what we see in the United States, where you have year-round negative attack ads, and it creates  a very polarized, hyper-partisan debate where it's very difficult to get important public policy decisions made."