As a result, if the budget to be tabled on March 29 is worse than the Canadian public expected because of the lack of consistent preconditioning, it will be difficult for ministers and Conservative MPs to later sell it to constituents in their ridings.
“They have been incoherent, there’s no doubt about that, in a huge range of issues,” said NDP MP Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster, B.C.). “They used to have tight messaging prior to May 2 and I think they’ve just lost their discipline around the messaging and people are losing confidence in them.”
Mr. Julian told The Hill Times that the Conservatives are “reeling from self-imposed fiascos” from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) speech in Davos, Switzerland about potential Old Age Security changes and the backlash that ensued, to Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) announcing the government was looking for $4-billion of annual savings and it rising to $8-billion. While the government signaled the budget could be severely austere at last fall, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.) later said the job cuts in the public service would be “like nothing” that took place in the 1990s when the federal Liberals cut 45,000 public service jobs. Now, Mr. Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.) has said the cuts in the budget he’ll table in the House this Thursday will be “modest.”
Liberal MP Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Sask.), a former finance minister, said the messaging on what to expect for the budget has not been “precise and understandable” which could pose a problem for the Conservatives when the budget is released.
“The communications running up to this budget have been muddled. The government on the one hand is preaching austerity and talking about making cuts deeper than they have previously forecast,” Mr. Goodale said.
“On the other hand, when Mr. Flaherty met with the economists about two weeks ago, he came out of that saying he saw the situation as maybe less risky than he had thought a few months ago, and the signs were getting better. … It has been a real hodgepodge of preconditioning and it’s not clear what message they’re actually intending to send. I would imagine that Canadians go into this budget a bit confused about where the government actually is on the state of the economy, the status of the deficit and the need for the kind of severe austerity that Mr. Flaherty previously talked about and the Prime Minister talked about in Davos.”
Earnscliffe Strategy Group principal Elly Alboim, who worked on federal budgets as a strategic communications adviser for the Liberals from 1994 to 2006, said that there was potentially “a rethink that went on” in which the preconditioning started in one direction and then there was a “mid-course correction.”
“I think it became somewhat incoherent. I don’t think anybody actually knows what to expect because of the conflicting signals, but I think that probably reflects changes internally in the thinking,” he said last week. “I don’t know the answer, but it sounds like instead of a strong austerity budget, there are going to be austerity measures within a budget to try to change some of the underlying economic principles and policies. The common wisdom in a majority mandate is you do the major things early. I think the major things have evolved into structural changes in some of the programs rather than a major cut throughout government. That’s what it feels like, but again, it’s not terribly coherent.”
This is in contrast to the 1995 budget in which departments’ budgets were cut from between 20 to 60 per cent and transfers to provinces were also dramatically reduced.
Mr. Alboim said the Liberals implemented an almost 11-month preconditioning strategy in which Canadians were told to expect a very austere budget. When the budget was tabled, Canadians got what they expected, he said.
“We had the summer discussions, the grey and purple books, the Parliamentary committees, the minister made a number of speeches, there was a building communications strategy that culminated in February that was very coherent and headed one way. So, in fact, when the budget came there were no real surprises,” Mr. Alboim said, noting that it was not then difficult for MPs to fan out across the country and “sell” it in their ridings.
“It wasn’t hard because their constituents were ahead of them and they had the cover that, ‘Look it’s not just us that’s suffering this, everybody is carrying their load. It’s happening everywhere, and it’s a collective effort to reduce the deficit and reduce the debt.’ … In the immediate aftermath of the ’95 budget and the ’96 budget, there was tremendous support for what had been done and MPs didn’t have any problems selling it.”
Hill and Knowlton vice-president Mike Storeshaw, a former communications director to Mr. Flaherty, said, however, preconditioning for that long is not needed now because the public is already aware that austerity is needed. “I think those days are past,” he said.
Although there may seem to be “mixed messages” coming from the government, it’s an inside-the-beltway perception, he said. The overall message that the government has been consistent on is the need for belt tightening. In addition, he said that all Conservative MPs campaigned “essentially on austerity,” reducing the deficit and getting back to a balanced budget and therefore the budget will not a be difficult “sell” when MPs return to their ridings to talk about it and make speeches at business chambers and community town halls.
“I just think that because we follow these things so closely in Ottawa and everybody’s parsing every word, that you don’t see the forest for the trees sometimes the way Canadians might,” Mr. Storeshaw said, noting also that the “sales job is more important prior to the budget being tabled” to ensure there are no major surprises in public opinion.
“Through experience with a couple of these things, I think there’s sometimes an expectation that the finance minister or the Prime Minister, or every MP across the country is going to go out and do two weeks worth of events and media and everything else to sell the budget and talk about the budget. I think, generally speaking, that’s usually a bit optimistic, that you can fill that much space and time and media real estate with those types of messages,” Mr. Storeshaw said.
“I think if you develop your message to Canadians prior to the budget being tabled, with a reasonably clear expectation of what’s going to come, and then meet or exceed that expectation in a good way, then your sales job after the budget is not only easier, it frankly doesn’t require as much time or effort,” Mr. Storeshaw said.
Mr. Storeshaw added: “I’ll be interested to see how much time they go out and spend doing chamber of commerce speeches and those sorts of things. There’s not going to be goodies to go out there and re-announce, which is often what the sales aspect of the budget ends up being. If those aren’t there, then you may have to get more creative, or you may have to dial it back.”
After Mr. Flaherty introduces the budget in the House at 4 p.m., there are a total of four days of debate allotted for the budget, which don’t necessarily have to be consecutive. The first day of debate will be Friday, March 30, at which time Mr. Julian, the official opposition’s finance critic, will deliver a speech in response to Mr. Flaherty’s budget speech. He will then move an amendment to the main budget motion.
After Mr. Julian concludes his speech and amendment, Liberal MP and finance critic Scott Brison (Kings Hants, N.S.) will also speak to the budget motion and move a sub-amendment to Mr. Julian’s amendment.
On the second day of budget debate, on Monday, April 2 if consecutive, all parties will get a chance to debate the main budget motion and the Liberal sub-amendment. Fifteen minutes before the expiry of government business, House Speaker Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) will interrupt the proceedings to take a recorded vote on the sub-amendment. At the end of the third day of debate, the House will vote on the NDP amendment. The House would then move onto the fourth and final day of debate.
The main budget motion will be called 15 minutes before the end of government orders and the House will vote. Once the main budget motion is passed and the budget is accepted in principle, the government will then introduce a ways and means motion to levy any taxes outlined in the budget document, as well as a budget implementation bill to enact all other aspects of the budget.
In a column last month, The Toronto Star’s Chantal Hébert wrote that that ministers will “make much of the programs they have preserved whenever they are on the hot seat for those that they cut” after the budget is introduced.
“In the days after the budget, expect ministers to make much of the programs they have preserved whenever they are on the hot seat for those that they cut,” Ms. Hébert wrote.
“Internally, they will be judged in equal measures on their private willingness to cut deep in their budgets and their public success in making a case that the essential missions of their departments are intact. Senior government insiders say that ministerial careers could be made or broken over the marketing of the 2012 budget. The suggestion is that the Prime Minister’s Office is approaching the exercise with zero tolerance for ministers messing up the government’s message,” Ms. Hébert wrote.
Mr. Storeshaw said while in some sense there will be pressure to ensure that “everybody is committed to what the budget is not only doing in a practical sense, but the message they’re delivering, they’re willing to stay the course on it over the long term,” he is confident that all ministers and MPs will do a good job.
“I have confidence that they will because they’ve all run on it and you’re not only managing the public expectation but you’ve spent time as a government managing the caucus and Cabinet expectations so when it comes, you’re not shocked, taken aback and feeling like they can’t communicate this to their constituents,” he said.
Mr. Alboim said that the budget “is the quintessential political document of every government” and if it’s not supported, the “government has got substantial trouble.” A recent Ekos poll found that 47 per cent of Canadians believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, compared to 42 per cent who believe the opposite. In addition, 53 per cent disapprove of the direction of the government, compared to 37 per cent who believe otherwise.
“I think that if the budget turns out to be inappropriate, unpopular and inadequate it may accelerate the feelings of discontent. It’s very important, and potentially it’s either an opportunity to be seized or to be missed given that they’re in a majority and can do what they want,” Mr. Alboim said.
“Depending on how much they reach and how ideological they are they may misread the country. I don’t think the country generally is in the same place as the Conservatives about the role of government and the size of government. I think most Canadians believe in a more activist and broader role for government than the Conservatives do. If they decide to impose a very draconian view of government and it turns out to be more austere than we anticipated form the preconditioning, they have a problem,” Mr. Alboim said.
Mr. Julian said he hopes the government will have taken into account opposition parties’ and Canadians’ concerns on where the budget will be headed.
“Canadians have expectations that the government will be responsible in this budget and not cut services that families depend on and not cut jobs which will weaken even further the economy,” he said. “If the budget is responsible, it makes it easier for MPs to sell. If the budget is an attempt simply for the government to carry on its own agenda without reflecting on what the public is clearly saying, then that would be a mistake and I think you’ll find that Conservative MPs will just run for cover. They won’t be out there selling the budget because there won’t be much to sell.”
Mr. Goodale said that the government should be focused on having a “prudent” budget with “careful fiscal management,” but should not take an axe to social programs that Canadians care about, especially pensions. “I think Canadians fully understand and have understood for a long time that the economy is fragile,” he said. “I think people are worried about the levels of household debt, a portion of which is mortgage debt, so sure, I think Canadians are fully aware of the risks and they want to see a credible plan but a plan that has within it a growth component and not just austerity for the sake of austerity because that could be counterproductive.”
Mr. Goodale noted that the budget should also focus on growing the economy rather than simply cutting. For example, he said deficits have shifted to the provinces, and if the federal government cuts something like Old Age Pensions and forces people to rely on the provincial welfare system, no money is actually saved.
“The big deficit and debt issues are now with the provinces. That’s where federal offloading becomes really problematic,” he said. “You’ve just shifted the cost from the federal level to the provincial level. If you insist on a big jails agenda, that will cost some billions of dollars over several years and half of that burden is carried by the provinces, you’ve created a new debt burden for the provinces, which doesn’t bring with it any source of revenue to help offset it.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Julian said the government likely “doesn’t have confidence” in what they will be presenting because they are presenting the budget on a Thursday, instead of a typical Monday or Tuesday.
Mr. Goodale said he believed the government is trying to “control the news cycle” because the first day of debate is on a Friday, which is usually a short day and rarely gets any coverage.
“I think maybe Mr. Julian is reading too much into the date than he should,” Mr. Storeshaw said. “I don’t think there’s going to be any lack of coverage of the budget or anything to do with it, because it’s two days later than he might’ve preferred. I think that’s kind of silly.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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