Unpacking the Politics: the importance of imagery in politics

WATCH: Tom Clark talks to Le Devoir’s Marie Vastel and the Ottawa Citizen parliamentary bureau chief Mark Kennedy about the political imagery of the past week.

The barbecue circuit has begun, as has the unofficial campaign.

While party leaders travel the road to the 42nd federal election, they’ll have their sights set on gaining traction and climbing the polls, separating themselves from the others.

Politics, especially in campaigns, is all about image and imagery. Already there’s been a lot.

Perhaps the most striking this past week was of former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro being led out of a courthouse in handcuffs and leg irons.

“I think it’s very damaging,” said  Le Devoir’s political correspondent Marie Vastel. “There’s a difference between seeing your former MP, former parliamentary secretary to the prime minister in shackles and some obscure scandal.”

To many voters, Vastel said, that image will be more striking than reading about a scandal in the newspaper.

And that image will likely become a common sight as the campaign gets going, said  Ottawa Citizen parliamentary bureau chief Mark Kennedy.

“If you’re an opposition party, why wouldn’t you show it?” he asked. “It goes right to the heart of the ammunition that the opposition parties will throw at them.”

That ammunition? Calling the Conservatives cheaters and rule breakers, Kennedy said.

Another striking image that made the rounds this week came after Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said he’d repatriate the troops involved in the bombing mission against ISIS if elected.

The Conservatives responded with an online ad showing ISIS propaganda and playing the terror group’s anthem.

What’s “appalling” about the ad, said Vastel, is it gives ammunition to the terror group by replaying its imagery.

“This is wedge politics at its worst,” Kennedy said. “What we’re seeing is the government trying to remind Canadians that they are the party that wants to go in there and bomb ISIS … Those are gruesome and horrific images that I think most Canadians would say, ‘We don’t need to see those, Mr. Harper.'”