It looks like amateur hour has officially started at the federal Liberal's national campaign headquarters. According to a party spokesman, the full-page advertisements that appeared in yesterday's national and major local newspapers, are meant (among other things) to show "parity" between the Conservatives and the Liberals - making this one of the rare moments in Canadian history where a governing party has actually wanted to make an opposing party look equal.

Those ads feature two black and white photographs above the fold: one with Prime Minister Paul Martin facing left, the other with Conservative leader Stephen Harper facing right. Below the fold is the following statement, written in 72-point red letters: "It's not which Canadian you choose. It's which Canada."

But you won't find out what the difference between those two countries is until you read the 12-point paragraph that explains the Liberals want to build Canada's social institutions rather than cut taxes like the Conservatives. Up until that point, this could easily have been an advertisement for Mr. Harper.

After all, the Liberal logo is buried in the left-hand corner. And the party's ad wizards haven't used a particularly attractive picture of Prime Minister Martin either (it looks like there's an extra tooth growing out of one side of his mouth). Nor have they gone out of their way to make Mr. Harper look like the movie character he most resembles: the demon-child Damien from The Omen.

Grit spokesman Peter Graham says, "The pictures were chosen to show a parity (between the Conservatives and the Liberals). That there are two legitimate choices (in the next election)...So there was no desire to make one picture look very different from the other."

And who, you may ask, is responsible for this brilliant idea? Red Leaf Communications, a consortium of Liberal-friendly advertising firms whose members include: Bensimon Byrne in Toronto, Venture Communications in Calgary, BBDO in Montreal.