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Man-made climate change may be a fact, the Chief Electoral Officer explained in a statement Tuesday, but “The (Canada Elections) Act doesn’t speak to the substance of potential third party issue advertising, nor does it make a distinction between facts and opinion. It is not Elections Canada’s role to make that distinction, no matter how obvious it may appear.”

The Green party's Elizabeth May said that it would be 'lunatic' for Elections Canada not to withdraw its advice, and she knows her lunatics

Some of those annoyed by this attitude seem to feel that they would, in fact, like the election agency to become a court-like trier of fact (one which then dutifully proceeded to endorse all their own personal beliefs). The Green party’s Elizabeth May said that it would be “lunatic” for Elections Canada not to withdraw its advice, and she knows her lunatics. Very few seem to have reached the conclusion — yet — that perhaps we should not be regulating nonpartisan election advertising at all.

We are all familiar with ads (produced by “third parties” like unions or business groups who have gone to the trouble of registering) that obviously target one side or another in an election by mentioning issues without naming any party or candidate in particular. This is seen as a species of gamesmanship, but maybe it is gamesmanship that ought to be go unregulated in the name of free speech, and we can restrict campaign-spending regulation only to partisan ads, ones that actually come out and say “Please vote for literally anybody else other than that zany Max Bernier.” (The $500 limit, if we are to have one, also seems mystifyingly low.)