The federal Conservative party temporarily deleted a political attack ad parodying the Heritage Minutes, after receiving a request from the organization that produces the historical TV segments, before re-posting the video with a disclaimer.
The video, entitled Liberal Scandals: Part of Our Heritage, was posted to leader Andrew Scheer’s Twitter and Facebook accounts Saturday night.
By the next morning, Historica Canada — the non-partisan organization that makes the videos — released a statement calling for the removal of the video.
“While we often welcome parodies of the Minutes, we do not approve of them being used for partisan political purposes,” it reads.
The video was deleted in the afternoon, before being re-posted with a disclaimer.
Anthony Wilson-Smith, the president and CEO of Historica, told CBC News he was advised of the video by his staff Sunday morning. Even with the newly added disclaimer, Wilson-Smith said the Conservative ad runs “counter to the spirit” of the heritage commercials.
The Conservative spoof used similar styles of narration, graphics and historical photos to those in the official Heritage Minutes spots, but the Tory segment lashes out at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet for various ethical and conflict-of-interest breaches.
It details the prime minister’s breach of ethics laws for his vacation to the Aga Khan’s private island, the violation of conflict of interest rules by then-fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc when he…
