SASK NDP: Subliminal Political Porn Ads.

Perhaps in the future Political Parties should view their ads before showing them on Television.

An NDP advertisement accusing the Saskatchewan Party of a hidden agenda has a dirty subliminal message of its own, the Opposition charged Tuesday.

The television ad consists of a series of written phrases where some words fade away letter by letter.

Saskatchewan Party MLA Nancy Heppner said the phrase "The Sask Party stood for privatization of the Crowns" dissolves for a split second and could be read as "The Sask Party stood for porn" before the words fade out completely.

"If it was done on purpose I think it's reprehensible and if it's done accidentally it needs to be fixed. Either way it needs to be fixed because I think that it's taking campaign politics and campaigning to a new low and I don't think it's something Saskatchewan people are going to stand for," the Martensville MLA said in a telephone interview.

But NDPers point out that the letter T also remains on the screen with the letters P, O, R and N and could easily be seen as "ptorn."

Party provincial secretary and campaign manager Doug Still scoffed at the idea that a subliminal message was intentionally included or that the dissolving word can even be read as "porn."

"I see a number of letters and that does not suggest that to me," he said at a press conference at NDP headquarters at Tommy Douglas House.

Still said the production company that made the commercial uses a computer program that dissolves the letters randomly, and "there's no room for human interference."

"For a party that has a hidden agenda, they're reading too much into a campaign that obviously pokes at their weakness very effectively," Still said.

There have been allegations of subliminal messages in political advertisements elsewhere in the past. A George W. Bush commercial attacking Al Gore's seniors' drug plan in the 2000 presidential election caused a mini-controversy when the word "rats" flashed onscreen before turning into "bureaucrats."

NDP pre-election advertisements, which depict the Saskatchewan Party as the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing, have been the focus of Saskatchewan Party ridicule since last week when leader Brad Wall unveiled a leaked copy of a brochure the party had obtained.

Heppner said Tuesday those ads are insulting to Saskatchewan residents because it depicts them as sheep.

A provincial election is expected to be called this fall.

jwood@sp.canwest.com[/q]