A sneak peek into the Rebranding of the Saskatchewan! New Democrats!
Creative Guidelines (pdf)
Our Future is Wide Open, people! And on our dime!
Dean In Regina has the email from Jeff Bohach, Executive Director to “all communications directors”.
| More at CBC. The $1.5 million exclamation mark “is for “optimistic” messages and not for announcements concerning coroners’ inquests, forest fires or West Nile virus outbreaks” | 
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In other words …. pretend we are not the dull gray commies that we really are.
Would the last one out (of Saskatchewan) please turn off the lights…..
Good one, John!
Actor George Burns once said: “Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Well, look at the bright side: at least they’re acknowledging the value of entrepreneurship, which is hardly to be expected of these types. It may not be sincere, but maybe in the recognition something will rub off.
I want to believe. Especially if Scully is posing, that Mulder guy can take a hike. Pay your taxes.
So less than a year before an election and in power for the last 15 years, we get NDP Lite?? They are getting desperate thats for sure. Just as a side point there was an NDP strategy meeting here in Moose Jaw yesterday and ordered food for 40 (Caterers have loose lips) and 10 people turned up. I think Leisure Suit Lorne is on borrowed time and if we get rid of the Equalization Card that he plans to play for the election , he will have no platform whatsoever.
I don’t know…doesn’t seem to me to be any different than the playbook that any organization or group would use to try to sell some idea or product.
Getting to the “real truth” is the challenge for anyone who feels they are being enticed into something dubious.
I think they mean to pose (ahem) “capture” a very candid Comrade Layton this way.
“Full-bleed, warm-toned colour images are preferred. Avoid white or sterile backgrounds.”
Especially if you’re photographing a Saskatchewan hospital.
Tooo funny…a new low in marketing…out rioght lies…portraying the voting base of the Kleptocratic Dippers as people who actually stand to lose in a Dipper-run kleptocracy.
Self employed and employers have probably been the sector moste raped by Dipper wealth redistribution.
Sask Dippers remain in power for one reason and one reason only Subsidy addicted agriculture. Every gainfully employed person in the province pays the tab for Ag welfare.
hanging on my office wall, laminated onto 3/8″ board, 8 1/2 X 11 landscape orientation, I’m looking at it right now:
“Once you learn how to fake sincerity, you’ve got it made”
George Burns 1986
”Every gainfully employed person in the province pays the tab for Ag welfare.”
True, but rural SK votes right-wing. The NDP are just too spineless to get that ag monkey off of our backs.
I don’t understand why you people are so opposed to highlighting the beauty that is Saskatchewan. As a photographer, I can appreciate it, and I’d figure Kate would as well. I guess not.
I guess I’ll never understand why you conservatives will trash the province, and then campaign as “Standing up” for the same province you were so critical of.
Oxy,
It’s not that Saskatchewan isn’t photogenic, it is the fact that the zebra is trying to change it’s stripes in order to look good. Trying to put forth a new image without changing the nature of the beast is not exactly kosher.
Actually some of my best pictures of Saskatchewan are of blue skies, yellow canola fields and an abandoned farm house or grain elevator. I guess they wouldn’t want my stuff.
Oxy, it’s not that “conservatives” are trashing the province. The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce has been preaching for the better part of 7 years now that the province has to sell itself as a land of opportunity and drop the culture of mediocrity that we have long portrayed. It is a good sign that our NDP government has finally jumped on the Action Saskatchewan band wagon and that they are finally starting to listen to the organizations who have been talking for years. I have to say though that the things they have been doing lately are going to be about as effective in rebranding them as the focus on the environment will be in rebranding the federal Conservatives. In the end, what it comes down to is that the electorate is going to thank them for admitting that the fiscal conservatives are right and then turn to the centre-right party to do it better.
Hey, how about these for slogans for Sask?
“Saskatchewan, the province where you get to keep more of your own money than any other province in Canada”.
or
“Saskatchewan, the province with the lowest number of civil servants per capita in all of Canada”.
or
“Saskatchewan, the province where Social Justice means that the playing field is level for everyone”.
That might get things going a bit… who knows, you might be able to capture photographs of real people, doing real work, for money they get to keep, satisfied and productive.
“Full bleed…”
Isn’t that also their taxation policy?
“Evil farmers” on the “Subsidy addicted agriculture”… who elect the NDP….?? lmao
Looked back in the archives for my area. NDP hasn’t won the (rural) seat for 30 years with the single exception of 1991 Glen McPherson (NDP) who beat the PC candidate by only 128 votes. Remember the “Devine Wipeout”?
Tell me tho. How is a subsidy to farmers different than say a government union contract?? Any private money there?
Where is it that you work Maryjane?? That you are so high and mighty? you have never told us….
How is a subsidy to farmers different than say a government union contract?
The union workers are employed by the gov’t., farmers are not.The question should be: If farmers are subsidized, why isn’t every business subsidized ? What makes agriculture so special?
What is depressing is not the campaign itself – quite creative and professionally prepared – rather it is the cynical death bed repentance of the NDP as the inevitable grind of the election cycle approaches its end. Calvert may not remember 2003 but I do – “reckless tax cuts” was how he characterized the SaskParty platform at that time and now, holy indexing, we have not only personal but corporate tax cuts. And now – we cut the PST (Oh, we raised it 2 1/2 years ago didn’t we…).
Young people have been leaving the province in droves for years but only now is it important enough to make some attempt at keeping them.
It is just too much. The NDP have organized themselves to have the biggest vote buying spree in history and they just launched the ad campaign.
Gawd I hope the people don’t buy this load of merde.
Show some highway without potholes.
Agriculture is special because we would die without food (unlike, say, marijauna or propaganda); and because farmers have been subjected to the “single desk” as part of the policy to keep the price of food low for consumers such as maryjane.
And these add campaigns are simply crass propaganda, paid for by taxpayers (perhaps hidden in the Crowns, again) and designed to boost the dippers election prospects at taxpayer’s expense: however, I don’t think that nough people will fall for it the second time around to save these little red weasel-mice bstrds.
I think the DNP are on to something. Most of what I just read is right on the money as a marketing ploy. Following the philosophy of pierre the pig it should fit his parameters of the Canadian voting public to a tee. 40% have no clue in hell of what is taking place, 40% think they know because the read as far as the big print, 15% have a vague idea and the rest are reasonable well informed. Screw the 20% it’s the 80% that get you elected. Looking at the voting patterns of Sask. voters in the past it remains to be seen how bright they are.
Dear Saskatchewan; I was hired to come to your beautiful province is november to help some poor farmers that have had enough of being raped by the”Canadian wheat board” set up a feedlot for cattle. I have been in business 30 years, spent time in Sask in 76 diddling a sask looker and couldn’t tell the difference between Alberta and Sask then. In November I had the displeasure of trying to secure the necessary components to set a water system up, after coming from Alberta I thought I was in Russia, you people have been boned up the ass for so long by the New Dopers and the wheat board you have no idea about progress. Please wake up, you are good people, I married one of your best, get rid of the old preacher and his communists and progress, you have more oil, uranium, oilsands etc. than us but you have that reservation mentality, is there government help for us?
Ohmigod they’re publishing photos with full bleed, what an outrage!
This has to be illegal. Using tax payer money in a thinly veiled NDP advertising campaign.
In 1948, Walter Tucker was the leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. He had also been the financial secretary for the Rosthern Mortgage Company. Many times during the election that year Tommy Douglas accused Walter of seizing farms “under very suspicious circumstances”. Walter sued for libel to the tune of $100,000. Walter won. Tommy appealed. Tommy lost. Tommy appealed again to the Supreme court. A new trial was ordered. Tommy settled with Walter to the tune of $5000 and legal expenses. True story. Never made it into Tommy’s movie though…
The bottom line is that the NDP have played every dirty trick in the book to hold onto power, and sadly, the people, or rather some people, of Saskatchewan just don’t catch on.
I’m about to turn 28. Raised in Waterloo, ended up spending a solid 8 years in SK. for educational purposes. Spent time living in both the south end (Moose Jaw) and north end (Prince Albert) of the province. Married a beautiful local girl and started a family (two lil’ keeblers so far). Followed provincial politics as much as I could. Listened to Gormley daily. Etc. etc. I like to think I gave Saskatchewan a fair shake.
Having said all that, I have nothing but scorn and a derisive chuckle for any govt. that would presume to try and convince me that SK. has anything at all to offer a young man trying to build a life for himself in the non-agrarian world. I’ve been gone less than a year and I recall seeing the TV spots they were running — showing people on beautiful lakes, smiling lab techs, etc. — and I find it all flabbergasting because anyone who’s done a lap of the province knows that the image they are projecting simply DOES NOT EXIST. Sadly. The people, very nice. The opportunities, non existant.
Oh, and on the topic of politics, it’s not at all surprising to me that the Dippers seem to be perpetually in power: the non tax paying natives love ’em because they take money from tax paying white people and hand it off to the natives so they can build more casinos. All it takes is a few extra self-loathing wannabe-yuppie urban white folks to secure the NDP victory. Happens every election.
Here’s a slogan for you: Saskatchewan! Get out while you can still afford a U-Haul. Or, Saskatchewan! Where your dreams go to die.
The brother of a friend of mine WAS farming in northern Sask. up until recently. A very large farm and quite profitable but he can’t get any help and is worn out working night and day. He can’t even rent out his land as his neighbors have the same problem. The reason he can’t get help is the restrictions placed on itinerant workers to protect the 3,4,5%, what ever the number is, that won’t, can’t or just show up for work when they feel like it. Take a guess who the vast majority of that percentage are?
What is happening in Saskatchewan should make it clear to everyone that good things happen when our NDP government adopts the main planks of the Saskatchewan Party’s platform. Think of Brad Wall sitting on a stool with a little dummy “Lorne” on his lap. Brad has his hand buried into Lorne’s back. Now when you see Lorne “talking” – well its actually Brad’s voice…….well, you get the idea.
I can’t wait for the next election so we can get these policy stealing thieves out of there and put in the people that actually believe and have been advocating many of the good things that this government has finally put into place. In the next election the NDP won’t need to publish a policy platform. They can just point to the Sask Party’s and say “what they said”.
Oxy sez: “guess I’ll never understand why you conservatives will trash the province, and then campaign as “Standing up” for the same province you were so critical of.”
Don’t put words in other’s mouths..NO ONE trashed the Province……it was the Province’s cryto commie government that was being trashed.
….and not eveyone disgusted by wheatfield communism is a “conservative”, there’s a good deal of populists, constitutionalists and libertarians who hate the Dipper’s guts too.
Problem with you Dippers is you never learned to separate nation and state…this nation and its provinces are comprised of the people that build it/them…the state is just the body of governmental parasites that feed off the nation’s hard work. It is possible for a patriot to detest the depravity of the state and love the nation….but not in the thinking of a conditioned crypto-commie.
Dippers never make the distinction between state(government) and Nation (the people)…that’s why they can say you are trashing the province when you trash it’s kleptocratic Dipper government. That’s why when they are in power they make no distinction between what’s good for the party and what’s good for Sask…they are one and the same in the Dipper mindset. In Dipper mindset the party is the state and the state IS the province/nation. From a purely democratic constitutionalist perspective that is a governmental ideal which reflects utopian megalomania.
Obviously dippers are utopian statists at heart to portray Sask’s ruling mousy-grey commies are supported by the very people who are enslaved to feed their kleptocratic monster government… it’s absurd…you want us to believe the overburdened private sector tax base are politically masochistic enough to vote for the bandits who prey on their risk, enterprise and productivity?….like all dipper PR/ideology it’s predicated on a lie.
Voltaire had the Dipper(crypto-communist) MO nailed when he said this:
“In general the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.”
maryjane :you are right the gov’t should get out of the business of farm subsidies but bread should be $7.50 a loaf and ground beef should be
$10.00 a lb if things were all equal. neither one is going to happen.
Mackenzie…I don’t know where on the planet you suck air on those rare occasions you extricate your head from your arse, but your obvious ignorance of SK would indicate that it’s not in close proximity to the prairies.
The NDP enjoys electoral success because of the unmitigated disaster that was the Progressive Conservative government of Grant Devine, the collective memory of which still burns. Time will tell whether voters will choose to not remember the past.
“In general the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.” And of course no other party or government does that, certainly not Steve Harper’s.
”bread should be $7.50 a loaf and ground beef should be
$10.00 a lb if things were all equal.”
If that is what the market determines the price to be, then so be it. I don’t have a problem with that.
“Saskatchewan is the best place in Canada for young people to live, work and raise a family.”
Advertising works so much better if it actually tells the truth.
Nobody is going to believe a campaign that says this when they read the opposite in the newspaper everyday.
Are Muslims directing the campaign?
Could be worse… you could live in Manitoba.
Which I do, after stints in Alberta, Ontario and the Yukon.
Apprently, NDP in-province “advertising” (read, propaganda) is not just a Saskatchewan thing. Here, we get the Dippers telling us how pro-business they are during every commercial break. Like it’s fooling anyone.
The Fraser institute report will do more to attract investment monies and real private sector producing jobs than 5 or 6 million the NDP has wasted on residents. Maybe they should sent some funding to them.
The Imagine campaign ran full page ads in the Star Kleenex and Reader Past but ran much less expesive 1/2 page ads in rural papers who “will” print editorials and letters critical of the NDP.
This is just another way to control the two big papers with cash flow.
Maryjane farmers have productive jobs in our province. What do you produce? diddly squat!
Maryjane,
The people of Saskatchewan voted for the Saskatchewan Party in 1999, remember? Roy lost the popular vote, just 8 short years after Devine. Roy got back into power through a back room deal with the Mellenchuk.
As Time passes people are starting to realize that Devine did more good than bad. After all, the NDP would never be able to balance the books had Devine not kept the Regina Upgrader open ( it either had to be closed or drastically renovated in the 1980’s), build the Lloydminster Upgrader, brought Weyerhaeuser to Saskatchewan (even Janice McKinnon admitted that was a good deal in her book), Saskferco, the list goes on and on.
I guess he could have just closed 50 hospitals and unleashed legalized gambling…
1.5 MILLION $ ON SASKATCHEWAN 3 TIMES. IMAGINE IF THEY INVESTED TIME INTO ATTRACTING COMPANIES HERE TO DEVELOPE OILSANDS, URANIUM REFINERIES,NUCLEAR POWERPLANTS,PIPELINES. IMAGINE THE JOBS, IMAGINE THE SPINOFF, BUT I GUESS IMAGINE ALL THE NON UNION WORKERS, THERE WOULD NEVER BE A NDP GOVERNMENT AGAIN IN SASKATCEWAN,SASKATCHEWAN, SASKATCHEWAN
“Progressia” doesn’t work if people are truly prosperous … The NDP knows this, so they need to somehow create a positive attitude without creating too much wealth. “Managing Wealth” for socialists means making sure that economic good times never happen. Confident, capable, well-off people don’t vote Dipper unless they are unionists, government bureaucrats, natives, crown corp employees, or on welfare … oh oh, that’s 75 percent of Saskatchewan.
Bartinsky is right on the money!! Maryjane, how could you compare farm subsidies to a union? That is like comparing a self empoled person with a welfare recipiant. I am a city boy who knows nothing about farming however I do know that they keep the economic wheels turning in this province with spinoff business and services. The cash flow from farms comes back around to everyone in some way including yourself. If you think that is a waste of money, have you looked into the pulp mill at Meadow Lake at all? Why didn’t the government just cut all of the prospective employees of that mill a cheque for $1.5 mill and forget the hassle of building and operating the mill?! The NDP is anti business and should stay out of business!!