The Liberals’ greatest communication failure

I recall attending a meeting in 2015 with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his then-principal secretary Gerald Butts to talk about advertising. The Liberals had retained the services of a search consultant to meet with advertising agencies. It was an unusual but refreshing move. Typically, political parties work with ad agencies closely aligned with the party—close friends—who hope to stay even closer after the election. This was meant to be the most effective way to get Trudeau elected. It also suggested that the Liberal government would make communications—specifically advertising—central to governing. As such, I expected that a Trudeau government would make sure that effective communications would be part and parcel of its programs and policies. By this, I don’t mean Trudeau would repeat former prime minister Stephen Harper’s blatant use of government advertising for partisan purposes. The Liberals’ 2015 platform called for an end to wasteful spending on partisan government advertising. They ended the practice. Perhaps to a fault. Éric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto. Photograph courtesy of Éric Blais There was a significant drop in federal government advertising once the Liberals came into power in 2015, continuing through to 2020, followed by a spike during the pandemic, and now a return to pre-pandemic levels. Importantly, the ad campaigns delivered information, not partisan messages to put the governing party in a good light. The government has also mandated industry body Advertising Standards Canada to review and vet campaigns to ensure they were free of partisan messages. It’s worked so well that most Canadians would be hard-pressed to name a government ad that got their attention. That’s a problem. Government advertising indirectly makes citizens feel positive about the work of Parliament and the public service. And it fosters a sense that the government is effectively managing the country—that it is delivering for Canadians. Butts appears to allude to the issue in a recent interview with The New York Times for an article titled How Canadians Fell Out of Love With Justin Trudeau. Butts called a spade a spade: “The government has come into trouble of its own making, in losing faith in its positive case for the country. They have been overwhelmed by the message that the country is broken and have not been able to say the opposite.” I asked him why, on LinkedIn: “Best guess is that positivity is hard to maintain in the face of unrelenting, toxic negativity,” he said. Which brings us to the price on pollution, one of the Liberals’ signature policies—one that will likely be axed. In 2015, Trudeau told Calgary's Petroleum Club that, if elected, his government would pursue a national carbon pricing plan. The following year, he rose in the House of Commons to announce that all Canadian jurisdictions would have put a price on carbon pollution by 2018. “I think that all Canadians will understand the third reason why we must move forward with pricing carbon pollution,” he said in a statement at the time. “It has been proven that it is a good way to prevent heavy polluters from emitting greenhouse gases that fuel climate change and threaten the entire planet.” It turns out that what he thought would be understood by all Canadians wasn’t. Initially, there was broad agreement across all major political parties on the principle of a national carbon pricing policy. But communications became critical when one party rescinded its support, sparking a vigorous opposition campaign. This shift had a substantial impact on subsequent elections and ultimately led to the repeal of the carbon pricing mechanism. Does this scenario sound familiar? It's not what happened in Canada, but actually what happened in Australia between 2009 and 2013. It’s documented in a 2018 Guide to Communicating Carbon Pricing published by the World Bank with contributions from external collaborators from around the world, including from Canada. Imagine that. The government had a blueprint for effective carbon pricing communications outlining the requirements for an integrated communications campaign. The guide explains how economic experts' attempts to clarify that the Australian carbon pricing was technically not a "tax" ended up backfiring. Rather than demystifying the policy, these clarifications entrenched the populist framing of the policy as a tax. Despite government communicators avoiding the term, most newspaper articles continued to label it solely as a "tax." It also notes that the opponents of carbon pricing made exaggerated claims, such as the price of a leg of roast lamb soaring to over $100 for a family, which played into fears and widened opposition. We’ve heard similar claims in Canada. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s hyperbolic criticism of the tax predicts a "nuclear winter" with "mass hunger and malnutrition.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has used the slogans 'axe the tax' and 'carbon tax election' as part of his communications strategy. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Observing how this complex policy was introduced to Canadians, it is baffling how little was done to communicate it effectively. A communications strategy isn’t merely an add-on—it should be an integral part of the policy design from the start, involving specialists in key decisions such as naming the policy. Recently, we've seen a "rebranding" from the "Climate Action Incentive Payment" to the "Canada Carbon Rebate," with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault working to ensure the rebates are clearly labeled in bank accounts so Canadians understand where the money is from. And now, we hear from the Toronto Star that Environment and Climate Change Canada is planning a $7-million “climate literacy and action” advertising campaign focusing on how “carbon pricing reduces emissions and benefits Canadians through the Canada Carbon Rebate." It's probably too late. If any government program needed a robust barrage of fact-based messaging with a sense of urgency and collective responsibility, it was this one. Trudeau’s team failed to translate their long-term environmental objectives into tangible, short-term benefits that Canadians could feel in their everyday lives. It's a shame. Éric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto. The Hill Times

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The Liberals’ greatest communication failure

How poor messaging on carbon pricing undermined Justin Trudeau's climate agenda.

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