Canada’s political parties are stuck in a communications rut

OAKVILLE, ONT.—In the movie, Waterloo, which tells the story of Napoleon’s famous last battle, there’s a scene where, as he eyes massed ranks of marching French troops, the Duke of Wellington (played by the late Christopher Plummer), stoically proclaims “They’re coming at us in the same old style,” to which an officer replies, “Well then, we’ll meet them in the same old style.” I’m bringing this up because, should the next federal election occur this spring, (as many believe it will) I can certainly envision the strategists of Canada’s major political parties saying more or less the same thing to each other. That’s to say, I believe the Liberals, Conservatives, and New Democrats are all going to battle each other using their same old styles. The communication strategies they employed in the last federal election are the same communication strategies they’ll employ in the next. For some parties this will make sense, for others it won’t. For instance, it would surely make sense for the Liberals to keep their same old style, since they used it to successfully win back-to-back federal elections (albeit, only a minority victory in 2019) and as the saying goes, “if it aint broke, don’t fix it.” And the Liberal Party style is clear and simple: it pins its electoral hopes on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s affable personality; if voters like Trudeau, they’ll vote for him. In the past, that meant pushing Trudeau as a cool, fun guy, rock-star-style celebrity, but next time I’m betting that, with COVID anxiety looming in the background, they’ll focus on a different aspect of Trudeau’s personality—his compassion. I think it’d work for them. As American political consultant Morton Blackwell once put it, "Politics is of the heart as well as of the mind. Many people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." This brings us to the NDP which I believe will also stick to its same old style, not because it works (it sure didn’t work in the last election) but because they really have no other cards to play. The New Democrats, after all, are stuck with the same leader, Jagmeet Singh, whose political skills are limited and they’re hampered by a lack of financial resources , both of which make it difficult to plan a new strategy. So expect the NDP to once again push a bland and inoffensive form of socialism in the hopes that this will somehow chip away at Trudeau’s progressive base. Now let’s consider the Conservatives. Here’s a party, which unlike the Liberals and NDP, has a new leader in Erin O’Toole, and it’s also a party which has lots of cash. So, you might think the Conservatives would be ready to try a new strategic approach. Yet, for the life of me, I don’t see any evidence this will actually happen. As a matter of fact, so far, the Conservative style under O’Toole seems pretty much the same as it was under his predecessor Andrew Scheer. In other words, the party still seems to be taking a cautious, “let’s not make any mistakes” approach, preferring timidity to boldness. Indeed, I believe this is why Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, noted for his bulldoggish demeanor, was recently removed from his high-profile Finance critic role, he was likely seen as just too aggressive. That’s simply not an image the Conservatives want to promote. Just like last election, they don’t want to scare voters, just like last election they might end up boring them. So, get ready Canadians, the parties will all march at you in the same old style. Gerry Nicholls is a communications consultant. The Hill Times