Grade 5 kids urge Harper to drop mean attack ads against Justin Trudeau

OTTAWA – Some Grade 5 students have some advice for Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Stop the mean, personal attack ads against Justin Trudeau.

Seven students from an Ottawa-area Catholic school have written to Harper asking that he pull the ads, which began running within hours of Trudeau claiming the Liberal leadership last month.

Teacher Natalie Casault says the idea came from the students themselves during a lesson on government.

To the kids, the ads looked just like cyberbullying, which they’d learned about a couple of weeks earlier.

The ads feature video of Trudeau doing a mock strip tease for a charity event, his head surrounded by fairy dust as a narrator sneeringly recounts his past experience as a camp counsellor and drama teacher.

Casault says one student told Harper she thinks the ads will make Trudeau “sad” while another suggested Harper employ other strategies, like telling Canadians about the good things his government is doing.