As many Gazette readers have noticed, this paper is profiting handsomely from the Premier’s very generous advertising campaign in Ontario newspapers. There’s just one problem. I’ve recently started having black and white dreams, which, if they weren’t so cheesy, verge on being nightmares. 

It took me a while to figure out where my subconscious was sourcing long nights of menacing, shadowy spaces filled with oversize authority figures.

Everything is in black and white…

I am in an empty courtroom. No ceiling is visible: panelled walls extend beyond sight. Even the empty benches extend above my point of view—my perspective is from a grovelling position. High on the wall is a clock. It is almost at 12:00. It’s either high noon, or midnight, the hour of judgment. Towering above me is a judge, her black robes casting a shadow over me. She grasps a legal folder in her white-cuffed arms. Her shoes are not stilettos, but the toes come to a dangerous arrow point. She will not meet my gaze; she looks beyond, slightly upward toward some source of light. I don’t stand a chance at this trial, do I?

Next, there’s a gloomy sky of heavy clouds, a leafless dead forest lies below, and a high wall in the distance. I am inside a looming structure of steel girders, facing a stubble-bearded man in a protective mask throwing sparks as he single-handedly (and contrary to all safety codes) takes a massive circular saw to a huge steel girder. He is intent upon his work, but I dare not attempt to escape, armed as he is with both certainty of purpose and a power tool…

Only after proofreading last week’s newspaper did I realize that Doug Ford’s campaign for A SAFER ONTARIO is the source of my dystopian dreams. 

The first scene came straight out of a (generous) full-page ad: “A SAFER ONTARIO MEANS…A BAIL SYSTEM THAT KEEPS OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS SAFE.”

The second from an ad that trumpeted, “A SAFER ONTARIO MEANS BUILDING NEW JAILS.”

Last week’s full-pager featured a child on some sort of toy car with a play structure in the background that somehow managed to look like a jail. A SAFER ONTARIO MEANS PLAYGROUNDS WITH NO DRUG INJECTION SITES NEARBY championed the headline. Again the ad is black and white, dark and scary looking.

Even an ad for the Volunteer Corps shows a volunteer — looking more like a member of a private militia — navigating terrifying flooding from nowhere.

I have several concerns about these ads: aesthetic, ideological, and political.

First, the aesthetics. What commands does Ford’s PR team give to the generative AI they use? Did someone say, “hey, Gemini, make it more Leni Riefenstahl”?

Which leads me to Ideological. Fears of safe injection sites and not enough jails are Poilievrian, Maga Maple talking points. “Crime is on the rise! The libtards are letting more criminals in so they can get their votes!”

The verbal messages reinforce the Law and Order mantra. But the imagery—as my subconscious has discovered — presents a criminal’s perspective. We are not invited to identify with the judge or the prison construction worker, instead, we are placed in fear of them—below them, in their shadow, unable to meet their eyes. This is a more subtle appeal to the Poilievre crowd—we can feel the fear and humiliation authority inspires in a criminal. We both impose and experience their pain.

This is what a bully does. In the face of deep-seated insecurity, the bully inflicts the same feeling upon others. The double verbal-visual message of these advertisements is an ideological sleight-of-hand.

This is clearly already political, but I wish to take this term more narrowly, in the sense of our government, and how it gets elected.

The Office of the Auditor General of Ontario published its Review of Government Advertising for 2025 in February. As mandated by the Government Advertising Act of 2004, amended in 2015, the AG documents government spending on advertising, while also assessing its purpose.

The last two years have broken records for the dollars spent on advertising campaigns: $103.5 million in 2023/24 and $111.9 million in 2024/25. Part of last year’s high is justified by the election, which required getting voting information out to the public.

But the previous peak was $79.4 million, in 2020/21, when the Covid pandemic required information dissemination.

Within these dollar amounts are included all kinds of informational advertising. For example, the automated license plate renewal program, or programs for economic development, job creation and trade. Some of these are aimed at the Ontario population, others further afield. Although the AG’s office doesn’t assess the efficacy of these campaigns, it does flag the purpose, the fundamental question being, is there non-partisan information provided in the ads?

The category that the AG flags for doubt about its purpose is called “Other Matters.”

In last year’s Review, some $43 million (38 percent of the total government’s very generous advertising spend) was flagged in this category, and described in terms such as: “The advertisements were aimed at a general audience. They did not include information about services and programs, but rather appeared designed to improve Ontarians’ impression of the current state of Ontario, the subtext of which promotes the governing party.” Some campaigns are assessed with, “we believe the primary objective of this campaign was to foster a positive impression of the governing party.”

The current, “A safer Ontario means…” campaign was not running last year, but should be flagged in the “Other Matters” category in next year’s review.

What’s the point of “flagging” such advertising? Why is it allowed in the first place?

The history of the Government Advertising Act tells us all we need to know. From its enactment in 2005 to 2015, the AG’s office ensured that “advertisements were informative and non-partisan.”

“The Auditor General was empowered to review and approve or reject proposed advertisements on this basis. … If our Office finds that an advertisement is not in compliance with the Act, the Ministry is not allowed to run it.

“Changes made to the Act in 2015 narrowed the definition of “partisan” and removed the Auditor General’s discretion in determining an advertisement item’s status.”

Since then—a decade now—the AG is left to repeat in assessments of various ads, “this advertising would not have passed our review under the original version of the Act.”

The Review concludes by saying, “we continue to recommend that the previous version of the Government Advertising Act, 2004 be reinstated.”

I might sleep better if this were the case.