“Mr. Martin [Liberal party leader] has tried to raise fears in his [negative] advertising campaign that Mr. Harper [Conservative party leader] has ‘a secret agenda’ to move the country far to the right. In one commercial, a female narrator warns that Mr. Harper would have sent troops to Iraq, and that he would resurrect a divisive abortion debate, weaken gun control and reverse Canada’s signing of the Kyoto climate control accord.”

Nowhere in the US, except perhaps the Bay Area, could anyone get away with such advertising.