Justin Trudeau releases platform via live Facebook video, with some hitches
Liberal Party says it is first to release platform using this social media feature
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau embraced technology Monday, live streaming the release of his full election platform in Waterloo, Ont., via a new Facebook video feature.
The stream, which featured live iPhone video of his announcement at Wilfrid Laurier University, encouraged users to ask Trudeau questions, some of which he answered at the release.
The Liberals are calling it a "Canadian first" — saying they are the first political campaign in the world to release an election platform using live video on Facebook.
Meg Sinclair, a spokeswoman for Facebook Canada, would not confirm the event was a first, but she said she hasn't seen another politician release a campaign platform via Facebook live.
The video streaming feature, called Live for Facebook Mentions, was launched by the social media giant in August. Sinclair said any Facebook user with a verified account can stream live video using an iPhone. It has been used by Canadian celebrities like Michael Bublé and Jann Arden.
Monday's stream began with Trudeau in a back hallway, speaking into the iPhone camera.
"Hey Facebook, it's Justin Trudeau. Big day today. We are launching our full platform in a couple of minutes," he said.
"I'm looking forward to taking all sorts of questions from the audience and from all of you, so make sure you post your questions in the comments below and I'll try to get to as many of them as I can over the next hour."
He repeated the comments in French, then without pausing walked down a corridor into a room of Liberal supporters and hopped up on stage. The camera followed behind him and was placed in a tripod directly in front of the stage.
Trudeau announced his platform, touting new help for post-secondary students, raising infrastructure spending and closing tax loopholes, before turning to a mix of questions submitted by the live stream audience on Facebook and from the crowd.
Questions ranged from those about anti-terror bill C-51 to the now infamous "mon amour" encounter with Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe during Friday's second French-language debate.
Liberals misspell Laurier's name
There were some hitches, though. During the first few minutes of Trudeau's speech, audio levels on the Facebook stream were so high that it was difficult to understand him.
The Facebook post that housed the stream also misspelled the university's name Wilfrid Laurier as Wilfred Laurier. Laurier, Canada's prime minister at the turn of the 20th century, was also a Liberal.
Several Facebook users pointed out the gaffe on the Liberals' post and it has since been corrected. The party did spell Laurier's name correctly in the French version.
Though Trudeau may be the first politician to live stream his platform, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was actually the first of the Canadian leaders to use the video stream during a Q&A at the Facebook Canada offices in September.
He posted a brief, 24-second live video, thanking users for posting questions during the Q&A.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair took part in a similar Q&A session at Facebook's Toronto office in August, though it did not include video.
All the leaders have been tapping into the popularity of video on Facebook, posting new videos to their Facebook pages almost daily.
Facebook Canada claims there are four billion video views per day on the platform worldwide, with more than 50 per cent of Canadians on Facebook watching a video every day.