This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Controversial Tory-linked PR firm working to oust Trudeau in Canada’s election

By:   []

Date: 2021-09

The communications company behind Boris Johnson’s controversial 2019 digital campaign strategy is helping Canada’s Conservatives in their bid to defeat Justin Trudeau in next week’s Canadian election.

Topham Guerin was behind a series of widely criticised Tory stunts in the 2019 UK election, including rebranding the party’s Twitter account as a fact-checking site. Now, the public relations company is working for the Canadian Conservatives’ campaign, which has been criticised for offensive ads – including by some of the party’s own MPs.

Canadian voters will head to the polls on 20 September, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a snap election last month in an attempt to win a third consecutive election and an outright parliamentary majority. Recent polling suggests that the race is neck and neck between Trudeau’s Liberal Party and the Conservatives.

Once the dominant player in the use of modern campaign tools, the Conservatives have trailed the Liberal Party in online campaigning in recent elections. Trudeau’s team credited his historic 2015 majority win to a revitalised data and social media game.

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This time around, O’Toole’s Conservatives have brought in Topham Guerin to help turn their fortunes around. As well as renaming the official Conservative Party Twitter account ‘factcheckUK’ during a televised leaders’ debate in 2019, the spin doctors set up a fake website that purported to showcase the Labour Party’s manifesto but that actually attacked Jeremy Corbyn’s policies.
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