In a move unprecedented in Canadian politics, Stephen Harper launched his re-election campaign this week — more than three years before the next election and barely nine months after the last election.

Harper kicked off his campaign with the airing of an election-style attack ad, which bashes interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae as “a failure.”

The release of the nasty TV ad so far in advance of the actual election raises two key questions:

First, will the 2015 race be dirtier, nastier and turn more voters off than the 2011 campaign?

If the anti-Rae ad this week is any indication, the answer is “Yes!”

The second — and bigger — question is can we do anything about these take-no-prisoner campaign tactics that undermine our democracy by increasing both voter cynicism toward politicians and disengagement from our political system?

Here too the answer is “yes,” but it will be tough.

The Conservative ad, which first aired Tuesday, attacked Rae’s record as Ontario premier from 1990 to 1995. Against a background video showing Rae chuckling, the announcer in the ad lists Rae’s “failures” and ends by saying “if he couldn’t run a province, why does he think he can run Canada?”

The ad follows a pattern of campaign bully tactics by the Conservatives, including the recent robocall affair, election financing violations and admitting to lying to voters by telling them that Liberal MP Irwin Cotler had resigned.

Indeed, since he became Prime Minister, Harper has lowered the overall standard on what is acceptable in Canadian politics. He has allowed his attack dogs to operate with impunity, taking his cue from poisonous American campaigns. With his new ad, Harper is clearly signalling he believes “going negative” is the only way of winning and he is not about to stop.

For years, political scientists in Canada and the U.S. have argued that the growing use of negative ads, which topped 60 per cent of all ads in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, fosters lower voter turnout and a loss of trust in governments.

By using more and more negative ads, politicians are in reality dumbing down election campaigns, with less focus on issues that really matter to voters.

In Canada, voter turnout has been falling since the 1950s, except for the odd blip up. For example, only 44 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots in Monday’s by-election in the Toronto-Danforth riding, where voter interest was supposed to be high.

Harper, though, doesn’t seem to care if he turns off more and more voters. That actually works in his favour. His base of 30 per cent of voters seemingly will stick with him regardless of what he or his operatives do or how badly they act. In many cases, they are energized by attack ads.

It’s a strategy that Harper picked up from Republicans in the U.S.: namely, play to your base and ignore the rest.

What can voters do to stop being barraged by negative ads?

We can tell our political leaders we are fed up with ads that are filled with lies, faulty “facts” or that unfairly twist words and images.

We can insist journalists examine attack ads closely and inform us when candidates are lying in the ads.

We can demand all leaders publicly pledge to stop negative ads.

We can challenge our leaders to discipline the people who create ads that exaggerate or distort an opponent’s record or policies.

We can become “nags,” constantly hounding politicians and their staff to be accountable for the ads they run.

It may seem a waste of time to complain about negative ads. Politicians have ignored such gripes in the past, convinced that attack ads “work.”

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But until more voters speak up and tell our political leaders to call off their attack dogs, our elections will only become more poisonous.

If that happens, then even more voters will be turned off and tuned out by politics. And that — to his seeming delight — may be the real legacy of Stephen Harper.

Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca

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