The Conservatives’ latest big-budget political ad campaign was paired with a mountain of spending on social media ads last month, nearly surpassing the party’s entire advertising splash over the summer as the party continues its aim of cementing itself as the party of change. However, with the Conservative message allowed to operate in a near vacuum, Liberal strategists say that unless the party plans to begin closing the gap soon with ads of their own, the Grits’ best bet may be to call an election sooner. 

According to data from Meta’s Ad Library—one of the few publicly available resources tracking spending by political parties on Facebook and Instagram—the federal Conservatives spent more than $352,000 on online ads in September across both the party’s official accounts and those of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.), with nearly half of that—$150,963—in the final full week from Sept. 22-28. 

On Sept. 29, the same day the party unveiled its newest “Mountain” ad campaign, the Conservatives spent an additional $44,318 on Meta—which was more than was spent in the entire first week of the month—and an additional $11,995 on Sept. 30. The Conservatives’ total advertising spending for September was also just shy of their entire summer outlay of more than $367,000 from June 1 to Aug. 30.

In comparison, the official accounts of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) spent a combined $30,227 on ads. This was followed by the official pages of the NDP and Leader Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, B.C.), which purchased a combined $15,618 worth of ads. Comparing their three-month summer totals, Trudeau and the Liberals spent $92,993 on ads, followed by the NDP and Singh with $69,459.

Conservative strategist Cole Hogan said he has it on “good authority” that the Tories’ ad spending on Meta represents a much larger advertising budget that spends comparable amounts on similar platforms, as well as television, radio, YouTube, and Spotify, and “possibly even gas station terminals,” or anything else with a screen and speakers.

“I’d imagine they’re on a full suite of platforms because they want to be everywhere right now,” said Hogan, a principal at GT&Co.

Hogan, who has worked on digital ads for Ontario Premier Doug Ford and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, said that with all of the new people available in the Conservatives’ committed voter base, the party will need to go wherever there are eyes and ears. 

“I think you’ll be seeing ads pop up in all sorts of places you wouldn’t expect them so they can try and reach those voters,” Hogan said, explaining that during his time working on Ford’s campaign, they had placed advertisements on Xbox Live, the gaming platform’s online networking service.

Former Conservative campaign staffer Dan Mader, who led the development of the party’s 2021 campaign platform and oversaw policy and speechwriting during the election, said the continued ad spending is an effective tool for the Conservatives to keep Canadians in an election mindset, regardless of whether the government falls in the near future or next year. 

“This is a sign to Canadians that Conservatives are ready to go for an election when these confidence motions are tabled, and that it’s not just for show,” Mader said. He added that even if the motions aren’t successful and the government stands for another year, “when you have an effective ad, it’s worth spending the money on.”

“Election or not,” Hogan said he predicts the Conservatives will maintain a similar level of spending and a steady stream of new ads to match, as the Conservatives under Poilievre have become “just as much of a production house” as it is a political party.

Alongside the more high-budget ads—which Hogan noted are all released with smaller, bite-sized versions—the Conservatives have hundreds of smaller, less expensive ads that can be pumped out quickly with still images and simple voice-over narration. 

“Opposition is the mother of all campaign innovation,” Hogan said, noting that the Conservatives are far more willing to try new formats, styles, and messages, while the Liberal Party seems scared to use any of their resources on anything new.

Hogan said that while the Liberals’ most effective messenger, Trudeau, has been effectively neutralized by bad polling, the party has struggled to find an effective narrative that both resonates with Canadians and pushes back on Poilievre.

“Anything they have tried has been way too little, and way too late,” Hogan said, noting that in the past week, the Liberals had seemingly dusted off the “hidden agenda” attack line from the days of then-prime minister Stephen Harper. 

“I think they’re trying to go back to what’s worked for them in the past, but they can’t run the 2015 campaign again in 2025,” Hogan said. 

Hogan said that while the Liberals have a long way to go to begin closing the message gap between themselves and the Conservatives, if they have any hope to do so, now is the time to start. 

While the Liberals may be in a “tough spot” between limited resources and unfocused messaging, their position will only get tougher the longer they allow the Conservatives to cement themselves as the party representing change for more voters, Mader said.

What the Liberals can do is try and convince those Canadians that Poilievre’s Conservatives represent a bad change, but with more and more Canadians indicating they will vote Conservative in the next election, “it may already be too late,” he said.

For those Liberals anxious for the party to unveil its own slate of ads to begin defining Poilievre or begin making the case for why it deserves to continue governing, Trudeau hinted those will happen “more organically, closer to the actual day when people choose.”

During an Oct. 1 appearance on an episode of the UnCommons podcast, hosted by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches–East York, Ont.), Trudeau explained that while releasing a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to attack Poilievre to match the Conservatives’ spending on his re-introduction was an option, “something didn’t feel true” picking a fight when he should be “fighting for Canadians.”

“If I’m going to drive someone down in the polls a year or two before an election, or even three or four years before an election, is that the best time to knock them down and lift myself up?” 

Former Liberal ministerial staffer Greg MacEachern said the problem with Trudeau continuing to promise “the ads are coming” is that “it starts to raise expectations of what these ads are going to look like, and what they’re going to accomplish.”

MacEachern said that while he doesn’t attribute all of the Conservatives’ success and the Liberals’ lack thereof solely to advertising, the former’s has undoubtedly been far more effective “operating in a vacuum.”

During the podcast, Trudeau pointed to the Conservatives’ failure to define him with their early and increasingly negative attack ads in the leadup to the 2015 election as a reason not to attack Poilievre early. But MacEachern said that was comparing apples to oranges. 

“It’s much harder to define someone who was front-page news from the day they were born to a sitting prime minister,” MacEachern said, noting that the Conservatives had been much more effective at negatively defining short-lived Liberal leaders Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion.

“If Trudeau’s experience gave the Liberals confidence that they didn’t need to shore up his image or do to Poilievre what the Conservatives did to [Dion and Ignatieff], they may have missed the boat,” MacEachern said. 

MacEachern said that if the Liberals are committed to holding their fire on Poilievre, the party could at least focus on messaging to convince supporters—and even some members of the caucus—that Trudeau is committed to leading them into battle.

“People are starting to wonder when the Liberals are going to get up off the mat,” MacEachern said. “Because sometimes it feels like they’re just waiting on their surrogates and supporters to carry their weight, or for the Conservatives to knock themselves out.”

Hunter Knifton, a consultant and data scientist with Crestview Strategy, said that while he isn’t convinced things are hopeless for the Liberals, without more spending from the Liberals and NDP soon, the current advertising gap is a “case for going early” into the next election. 

Knifton, who served as data director and deputy director of communications for Erskine-Smith’s 2023 Ontario Liberal Party leadership campaign, said that if the Liberals and NDP have no plan or ability to reverse the current trend, the Conservatives’ vote will only continue to expand and entrench over time.

However, if the Liberals do have advertising campaigns planned, “all hope is not lost” if the party begins campaigning seriously and soon, Knifton said.

“I think they need to start telling a positive story about what they see as the framing of the next election, and why they deserve a chance to govern again,” Knifton said. “Then they need to start telling Canadians about the downsides of Poilievre.” 

While the Liberals have made attempts to do just that through various “organic” means, such as earned media, online, and in the House of Commons, if they want those messages to reach enough Canadians, they will have to put some substantial money behind them.

“But the longer they wait, the harder and harder it gets,” Knifton said.  

sbenson@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Meta ad spending in September

 

Stuart Benson began covering Parliament Hill in early 2022, reporting on political party apparatuses and fundraising, policing and public safety, women and youth, marijuana, heritage, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party. He is also The Hill Times’ regular Party Central columnist. Benson previously covered local news and municipal politics at The Low Down to Hull and Back News in Wakefield, Que., where he began his professional journalism career in February 2020. He also won a Quebec Community Newspaper Award in 2021 for Best News Story and Best Agricultural Story, as well as winning a Canadian Community Newspaper award for Best Campus News story in 2020. See all stories BY STUART BENSON