We’ve seen this movie before. More Tory attack ads.

Did this surprise anyone today?

The television, radio and Internet ads accuse Dion of being a weak leader who can’t direct the Liberal senators to support term limits for the Red Chamber. The Conservative Party today released its latest round of television and radio advertisements attacking Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

So the Tories have now gotten to the point of trying to claim Stephane Dion is “not a leader” over the term limits bill? This is nothing more then an obvious attempt to try and get Canadians to change the channel and forget about the Conservatives weak environmental plans and the Afghan detainees debacle. I’m not the only one saying that either:

The ad campaign..is seen by observers as a desperate attempt by the Conservative Party, which is flagging in the opinion polls, to shore up support in Alberta and British Columbia where Senate reform is considered a priority.

I’m not sure that it’s so much a priority that BC and Albertans will be angered if it takes a little longer to impose term limits on Senators, which is what the Liberal Senators say they will do, with some amendments. The Tories apparently believe that spending their extra money on more attack ads will turn their flagging fortunes around. Why else would you throw up attack ads - on the Senate of all things -, with an election not expected til the fall or even the Spring of 2008? At some point, Canadians are going to get bored of this obvious trick, and it will not resonate, or it will backfire on the Tories.

Even if Senate reform is as big as an issue out west as the Tories somehow think, I personally believe that if there is any hay to be made on electoral reform, its in advocating voting reforms for the H of C. That, in my view, is the way to counter such trivial tinkering with the Senate that is being lauded by Harper as some great democratic reform. Throw the House of Commons electoral reform in his face, and start saying that’s where the relevant voting reforms are needed.

I am hoping that the vague mention of looking at electoral reform that Liz May and Dion mentioned at their joint conference on not running a Liberal against Peter McKay might be the precursor to some bigger announcement during an election campaign on that specific issue.