Canadian political ads in the days before Twitter
As media evolve, so does political communication
Political ads seem to be everywhere when a federal election is in full swing.
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have all made it easier for parties to get their messages out. At the same time, the advent of social media has also made it all too easy for candidates to get into trouble.
With this noted, we look back on pre-digital times, when political ads weren't so easy to disseminate.
The photo gallery above features posters that date back as far as 1891, when the Conservative Party of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald defeated Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals.
One of the central issues of that campaign was Macdonald's National Policy of protective tariffs. The Liberals supported free trade with the United States.
The 1911 anti-reciprocity campaign posters were designed by Toronto cartoonist Newton McConnell.
Things got nastier during the 1917 election campaign, which pitted the pro-conscription Conservatives under Robert Borden's Union government against Laurier's Liberal Party.
The Union Party poster depicted in the gallery shows Laurier and the Liberal Party expressing sympathy for the Kaiser of Germany.
Posters in Canada started to lose their dominance as mass media became commonplace, first with radio in the 1930s and then television in the 1950s.
Fast forward to the election of 1984.
The Progressive Conservative Party, led by Brian Mulroney, won the largest majority government in Canadian history.
The election marked the end of the Liberals' long dominance of federal politics in Quebec.
All three of the below videos are from that particular campaign.
The first video features Mulroney talking about the economy and jobs while sitting at a desk.
The second video is from the New Democratic Party. It also hits on jobs and the economy. In the video, a recent graduate looks eager to join the workforce. The NDP promised to create more jobs for young people during the campaign.
The last video is from the Liberals and features a mock game show called Reaching for the Top. Notably, the two men in the video have their heads cut out of the frame as they hit the buzzers.
