Chrétien attack ad
Canadian campaign ad
During the 1993 Canadian federal election campaign, the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party produced a televised attack ad against Jean Chrétien, the Liberal Party leader. The ad (sometimes referred to as the "face ad") was perceived by many as a focus on Chrétien's facial deformity, caused by Bell's palsy. The resulting outcry is considered to be an example of voter backlash from negative campaigning.
Background
Heading into the 1993 election, the Progressive Conservatives were beset by many problems, notably the ongoing recession, the unpopular Goods and Services Tax, and loss of support to the recently formed Reform Party and Bloc Québécois. While the party was initially optimistic about being able to at least retain second place, its support had dropped badly in the final weeks of the campaign. Realizing that without something dramatic the Liberals were certain to win a majority government, the PC campaign leaders decided to launch a group of four ads attacking Chrétien and his record.
PC campaign director (and future Toronto mayor) John Tory was mainly responsible for deciding to launch the ads, along with Allan Gregg, a pollster who was one of the top campaign managers. Gregg had launched a series of attack ads aimed at Liberal leader John Turner in the last days of the 1988 election to great effect. The new ads were produced quickly, and few in the party, including Prime Minister and PC leader Kim Campbell, who was on the campaign trail, saw them before they were aired.
The second ad and immediate reaction
The second of the four ads premiered on October 14, 1993.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4588405. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1993 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chrétien attack ad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.