In political communications, 鈥渢oo much鈥� is sometimes worse than 鈥渘ot enough鈥�.
It鈥檚 understandable that the Liberals, frustrated at the success of Pierre Polievre鈥檚 freewheeling demagoguery, would be tempted to go into overdrive on the message front.
On Monday, the day of Parliament鈥檚 return, we saw a case of overdrive becoming overkill.
The Liberal 鈥淎-Team鈥� had been pressed into service for a midday news conference.
Five (count 鈥榚m, five) of Trudeau's front benchers showed up with very thin messages. Freeland, Champagne, Anand, Fraser and Miller reported for duty but there was no battle plan.
Make no mistake, by any historical comparison these are all top notch politicians with good administrative skills. Each of them is leadership material. The problem is, the Liberals have never really understood anything about communications beyond the lines that are dutifully prepared for Trudeau to deliver on any given day.
When you fill a press briefing room with five ministers, you鈥檇 better have something to say that is pithy, and worth remembering. On that score they fell way short and it reminds one of the analysis by former Finance minister Bill Morneau: on Trudeau鈥檚 watch, the PMO exists mostly for the image of the prime minister.
Unlike previous administrations in Ottawa, there鈥檚 no sense that anything, other than Trudeau, really matters. No overarching narrative. No message for the public to retain and connect positively with the government.
Nature abhors a vacuum and into that breach, Poilievre has been pouring a withering fire.
It鈥檚 easy to feel a bit of sympathy for team Trudeau. In addition to helplessly watching Poilievre eat their lunch, they just can鈥檛 seem to catch a break.
Last week they ran what, by any fair account, was an excellent cabinet retreat in Montreal. On the final day鈥OOM, a bolt from the blue just as the wrap-up media round was set to begin.
The federal court decision on the invocation of the Emergencies Act to end the illegal occupation of Ottawa, was made public. It said the exact opposite of what the Commission of Inquiry had stated last year. It was like an anvil in a Roadrunner cartoon, with Trudeau in the role of Wile E. Coyote, helplessly looking up as it inexorably fell towards him.
They promptly bundled Trudeau off and he skipped most of what should鈥檝e been a well-deserved victory lap of media interviews. Chrystia Freeland was left to pick up the pieces but the day鈥檚 news had changed in a flash and there was no getting back on any type of positive message for the Liberals.
At Monday鈥檚 news conference, Minister Champagne seemed to hold the strongest hand on the public policy front and he made the best of it. Walking the fine line between political interference in a prosecutorial proceeding and a spirited defence of the public interest, he was pushing for stronger regulatory action by competition authorities against the grocery chains. Easy pickings and he did well.
The threat of using newly bolstered powers under the could have, and should have, been the message of the day. This was tough stuff. The kind of 鈥渨e are fed up with price gouging and possible collusion鈥� message an overcharged public was hoping to hear.
Instead of being the key piece, it was enveloped in a cornucopia of side issues that drowned out the message. Political communications 101: pick a topic and stay with it!
Chrystia Freeland did her best, trying to explain the carbon tax rebates. There鈥檚 nothing complicated about the system. It鈥檚 similar to the GST rebate cheques less fortunate Canadians have received since that tax was introduced.
The problem is, Poilievre has had a year to do the defining and Canadians, as hard pressed at the gas pump as the grocery checkout, believe his version. Freeland鈥檚 explanation that eight out of 10 families will receive rebates is true, but it鈥檚 not a message that could get through at a press conference.
It would require the type of publicly funded ad campaign that the Conservatives under Harper regularly ran when Polievre was a minister. Problem is, the Liberals seem unaware that there is even an issue, so they鈥檙e not looking at solutions.
As if all that wasn鈥檛 enough, the Liberal communications gong show also included puerile social media posts from newly hired senior adviser . In a series of cringeworthy and crude shots at a right wing political influence group, she embarrassed herself and her party. If Trudeau keeps her on, it will be on him.
The lowlight of the day may have been an exchange that included an impromptu interjection by former Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis. Trudeau had taken a sideswipe at her for having had supper with an extreme right wing German politician and was asking Poilievre why he hadn鈥檛 done anything about it. Not about to take a lesson in political correctness from Trudeau, : 鈥測ou put a banana in your pants鈥� and said people wouldn鈥檛 forget that.
Lewis, one of the few Black women in Parliament, was referring to one particular video that became public during the 2019 election campaign, showing Justin Trudeau in blackface.
It wasn鈥檛 the first time that Lewis had called out Trudeau for wearing blackface, which she in the past as constituting the 鈥渙bjectifying and denigrating of black men鈥�. So it was a surprise to hear Trudeau try to again attack Lewis personally for that supper with the German politician. No one on his staff appears to have known what he鈥檇 be getting back from Lewis.
There is something particularly pusillanimous in a party leader choosing to personally attack an MP via her leader鈥檚 exchange, when that MP doesn鈥檛 even have the floor and, normally, can鈥檛 respond. Trudeau and his team had forgotten that Lewis isn鈥檛 exactly the type to sit silently by when she鈥檚 being assailed. More tellingly, it was as if Trudeau鈥檚 highly touted new executive communications director had missed the last year in politics.
If Trudeau thought he鈥檇 be scoring any points by going after Lewis about supper with a German politician, he and his hapless communications team soon learned a very old lesson, that when you spit in the air, you never know where it鈥檚 going to land.
It was 2-0 for team Poilievre-Lewis and it was only the first day back on the job.
Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017
