Parry Sound-Muskoka Green Party

I found it a little funny that in last week’s editorial your paper seemed to miss the point of the Green Party “attack” ads that were released last week.
I thought it was fairly obvious to most people (including the over 40 000 Canadians who signed on to our anti-attack ad Facebook group in less than 5 days) that the ads were in no way like the other parties as you had suggested. They were in fact the exact opposite.
Our ads were intended to highlight and reject the negative culture of the other parties and their divisive advertising. Hence the play on the word “attack”.

Anyone who actually took the time to view the commercial would immediately see that the Green Party was taking a stand against attack ads and that we felt Canadians in general did not support or appreciate this kind of American style politicking.
As for your implications that we were wasting money, I would like to point out that our ads cost less than $10 000 dollars, which is tiny compared to the millions in pre-election advertising already done by the other parties. We relied on social media and people power to spread our message allowing citizens to make the choice to share our message, rather than forcing it down people’s throats during breaks in their favourite television program.
I am sorry that you missed the subtle message of our campaign but given the simplistic nature of most attack ads, I can almost understand why it would be hard to believe that a political party would actually be encouraging intelligent discourse.
Fortunately, the Green Party continues to be different.
Glen Hodgson
Parry Sound-Muskoka federal Green Party candidate