Brand politics
Dan Gardner’s latest article compares the success of the Conservatives and failure of the Liberals in terms of their basic branding message.
He argues that one of the keys to the success of the Conservatives is that they have identified and sold their brand as “small government and individual liberty.” He rightly notes that their actions often contradict their own brand, but in marketing beliefs matter more than reality (this is why people still equate fiscally conservative with fiscally responsible).
He goes on to note that the only brand the Liberals have been holding onto is “the party that governs.” This worked fine when the Liberals were in power, or even in Official Opposition, since they were the natural alternative. Now, as a third-place party, though, the Liberals continue to look arrogant and like they stand for nothing.
He finishes by arguing that the Liberals should adopt a core theme of being “socially liberal and fiscally conservative” to differentiate themselves from both the Conservatives and the NDP. Gardner otherwise ignores the NDP in this piece, so it’s up to us to come up with what their key message is, perhaps “progress through cooperation” or more cheekily “The party that Jack built.” Going through the NDP’s preamble leaves it a bit ambiguous what the key message should be.
And here’s where the first chip in Gardner’s article appears.
While the idea of branding is pushed hard by marketing execs and gurus, it remains unclear if the evidence actually supports the notion that having a solid brand will improve your sales or whether the converse is the case.
In Hard Facts…, the evidence-based management book I recently reviewed, the authors are quite sceptical of claims that establishing a concrete strategy will lead to organizational success. Instead, they declare it a dangerous half-truth, noting that while strategy is important, leadership and effective implementation is often far more critical.
This point can be demonstrated in the Liberals where Bob Rae’s (interim) leadership has generally been seen as quite successful so far in revitalizing the party, including recent spikes in poll numbers.
Gardner somewhat acknowledges this point near the end of his article when he says
But it takes more than grassroots gab sessions to cultivate an identity and craft it into a brand. It takes calculated leadership of the sort that Stephen Harper deployed to make “small government and individual liberty” the Conservative standard.
I generally like Gardner’s work, and while there is some to like in this piece, it comes off as a weak argument to me, since he failed to really bring in any evidence for his assertion. He cites one example of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives as where effective messaging has worked, but with so many confounding variables (fundraising ability, willingness to smear and lie, increasing the vitriol, never-ending campaigning, centralizing all messaging, etc.) it’s a really weak case. If anything, the Conservative example shows us that strong leaders are more important than simple messages, perhaps the Liberals should keep looking for their next messiah leader (i.e. someone who can communicate).
Youth ostracism in Canadian politics
Elections in recent history have told the same story again and again: Young people aren’t voting.
Sure, some of us are. Many others are attempting to bring in more of their peers through vote mobs and other social media pressures, yet to date the evidence is that these efforts have been a disappointing flop.
The occupy movements were a brief glimmer of hope, but it remains unclear whether these protests have truly engaged the disaffected youth or just tapped into those who were already involved.
Progressive parties know that the next generations shares their values of equality and inclusiveness, yet they have failed to date to truly connect.
Two recent stories only further the disenfranchisement.
This weekend the Liberal Party of Canada held their Renewal conference in Ottawa. The conference is meant to reverse the tide of bad luck that has befallen the party over the past decade.
While some big ideas were put forward to revolutionize the internal structure of the party, the policy resolutions mostly avoided discussing real issues in favour of commitments to form committees to study issues. As an example, the environment was absent from the proposed resolutions, while a plan to develop a national food strategy was passed.
One of the failed resolutions was to study whether Canada should seek to abolish the monarchy and replace it with an elected Canadian head of state. This motion was put forward by the party’s youth wing and Liberal Youth Vice-President Sean Southerland argued vociferously in support of the motion
“No Canadian can ever aspire to hold the position,” argued Liberal youth vice-president Sean Sutherland, who presented the motion. He urged delegates to be bold as they were Saturday night when they adopted opening up the party to a new class of “supporters”.
“Instead it has been historically held by an unelected monarch who lives an ocean away,” said Mr. Sutherland.
He noted that Liberals are not strangers to controversial positions, saying that in the 1990s their debates about legalizing same-sex marriage were dismissed as not important as this monarchy resolution is being today.
“That didn’t stop young Liberals then. This won’t stop us now,” vowed Mr. Sutherland.
62 per cent of delegates ended up voting against the youth-led initiative. While many argued either in favour of Canada’s historical ties or that the issue was too divisive, the most worrying issue was the following:
But what received the most applause and support were the delegate’s statements, who accused Liberal youth leaders of betraying the trust of other young Liberals.
Instead of talking about what is important to them and what truly affects their lives – “shrinking jobs,” post-secondary education and increase of aboriginal Canadians in jail – they chose this motion that can “only bring harm and ridicule to our party,” [delegate Ryan] Barber said.
There is nothing quite like the party elders talking down to the younger generation. Clearly the young Liberals are mistaken about what issues their supposed to be representing.
Imagine the controversy if people applauded when the chair of a women’s or First Nation’s caucus was chastised for not properly representing their constituents. If young people in the Liberal Party are dissatisfied with their current leadership or the resolutions put forward, I’m assuming the party has democratic means for them to be replaced.
But by approving of this attitude that young people should know their place, the Liberal delegates have shown their hands as intolerant and untrusting of younger people and their ideas.
The next story comes from Alberta NDP member Denny Holmwood who has accused the federal NDP of discriminating against young and unwaged party members.
The controversy comes from the registration process for the coming leadership convention. While all members will be able to vote for the next leader, many will want to attend the conference in person. The fees are set at $299 until the end of January and $349 afterward. These costs are prohibitive to many and the NDP has a long history of offering discounts to those who can’t afford them – typically the young and unemployed.
However, to reduce the number of potentially fraudulent registrations, the party is requiring youth and unwaged delegates to call a 1-866 number, which may only be available during Ontario business hours (9am to 5pm in Ontario is 6am to 2pm Vancouver).
With today’s connected youth, do we really want to be adding additional hurdles to their full participation? Conventions are a great chance to build connections and to rally new members into the party. The NDP should be seeking to encourage more young people to be attending the conference, not impeding their ability.
Please sign Denny’s petition to get the NDP to change their position.
I would rather see more people sneak in at a discounted rate than anyone be turned away by difficulties.
Why I oppose strategic voting
Canadian politics are plagued by an archaic electoral system where whoever gets one more vote than second place gets sole command over their constituency. This practice is known formally as “single-member plurality” or first-past-the-post voting and remains in use only in Canada, the UK, and the USA.
When Canada was founded, and only 2 major parties existed, the system made sense. However, once a third candidate enters the race, the system breaks down and screams of “vote-splitting” are rallied from every party in an attempt to sway voters to their camp.
The right-wing in Canada argued, successfully, to their base that the split between the Canadian Alliance (formerly Reform) and the Progressive Conservatives was costing them elections. After merging, they soon won a minority government (although have still failed to break 38% in an election.
In 2008, and again this year, there are cries of vote-splitting on the left, and many projects attempting to rally voters behind “progressive” candidates (meaning primarily Liberal, occasionally NDP, and one Green) in swing ridings, in an attempt to take down the Conservative government.
While good-spirited, these motivations are flawed by design for several reasons.
2 votes, 2 weeks
Just over one week after the federal election, myself and voters of Vancouver-Point Grey will be going back to the polls to vote for/against Christy Clark in the byelection she just announced.
Perhaps she’s hoping that since the NDP don’t even have a leader yet (not till Sunday) and are likely busy fighting the good fight in a number of local ridings (including the too-close-to-call Burnaby-Douglas) to mount a strong defense. Or maybe she just wants to get in before the HST mail-in vote begins and people start to remember how much they dislike it.
Regardless, this is much sooner than I expected.
Iggy inspires Canada via Facebook
I must admit that I really like the new Liberal ads CalgaryGrit showed. What I liked most about them is the positive framing of government as something that’s there to help rather than the Libertarian-Conservative negative government that always gets in the way and needs to be done away with.
And after seeing a little Google Ad for Jack, I get this on my Facebook:
I’m still waiting to see if I’m “inspired” enough to hold my nose and vote for Joyce Murray (supporter of naturopathy) in my riding, but we’ll see.
Iggy said two good things
Well this is a change from last year’s embarrassment of a caucus retreat for the Liberals (when Ignatieff said he would defeat Harper ASAP then got whipped by his party and retreated back to the vote or abstain with Harper at every opportunity bit).
Today we have Ignatieff blasting Harper for reckless spending (exactly what needs to be said), and also adding a little bit about “playing nice with others.” This is a great contrast to Harper’s scaremongering with coalition talk again.
In the red and orange corner we have talk of cooperation and nation-building. Defence of health care and the environment are priorities, along with sound economic management.
In the blue corner we have talk of boogeymen and the continued denigration of our welfare state.
My new theory is that Libertarians like Harper just never learned to share as children.
Leading by example
A huge kudos out to Alberta Liberal leader David Swann for this gem that all federal MPs should pay attention to:
As a commitment to the issue of financial accountability I will be posting the monthly statement of expenses for my constituency – Calgary Mountainview – in the coming weeks. This information will be available directly on my website for constituents and all Albertans to review.
The provincial Auditor General in Alberta has the ability to see MP expense reports, so I’m not sure if this is already a little better than the federal situation, but nevertheless, honest politicians are hard to come by these days.
When will BP ruin BCs coastlines?
By the time you finish reading this post, well over 5500 litres of oil will have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil continues to pour out of a busted well and the slick continues to grow and has already hit land in some parts of Florida. Meanwhile, closer to home, the question that seems to be off of the provincial radar is when will our offshore wells be built so they can threaten our fragile habitats?
It has been over a month since an explosion rocked British Petroleum’s (BP) Deepwater Horizons oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. The blast left eleven people missing and presumed dead and well over 790,000 litres of oil has gushed into the sea. There has been little success at stopping the flow so far.
It seems hard to tell if any remorse is being felt by the heads of BP for a disaster that is shaping up to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill in the North Pacific years ago. Perhaps their biggest fear is either the public relations hit or that they will not be able to profit off this spilt oil.
Just a week prior to the last provincial election in 2009, Premier Gordon Campbell signalled that a provincial Liberal government would continue to lobby for an end to the offshore drilling moratorium that inhibits BC from building wells at sea. This position was in line with the Liberal’s 2001 commitment to have an offshore drilling industry in BC by 2010.
Days later he squeaked by with a slim majority government. It was soon leaked that the provincial deficit would be much larger than promised and that BC, along with Ontario, would be implementing an HST. It should not be a surprise then that after dropping twenty points in the polls that Campbell would not want to broach the subject of offshore oil wells.
Yet with the recent tragedy in the Gulf, it is more pertinent than ever to find out what our far-too-secretive government is up to. While the typically oil-friendly federal Conservative environment minister Jim Prentice has backed off from any new offshore projects and has reaffirmed moratoriums on drilling off BC’s shorelines.
Darrell Dexter, the newly-elected NDP premier of Nova Scotia, was quick to pledge his continuing support to offshore moratoriums in his province and even Barack Obama has gotten behind a temporary slow-down. Obviously no leader would want to publicly come out as pro-drilling right now, so I guess Campbell’s silence on the issue speaks as much to the issue as a press conference would. There is currently no sign that Campbell plans to back down on offshore drilling.
As a non-renewable resource, it is quite clear that at some point in the future we will run out of oil. And while there is still a lot of it underground, the remaining supplies are in increasingly difficult regions to access. Whether it is in the Alberta tar sands, under politically unstable regimes, or deep under the Arctic ice sheets, there are many political and environmental issues that must be addressed if we want to responsible drill for this oil. And while a leak off BCs coast may be containable, imagine the damage that could be done were a disaster to befall an arctic well, with hundreds of thousands of litres of oil covering the undersides of the ices sheets.
Of course, I personally would love to see the end of the oil age in my life time, the fact of the matter is that this laptop I am typing on, the synthetic portions of my clothes, and countless other products use barrels and barrels of oil, let alone the amount that we use for energy. A lot of work has been done on alternative energies, and there is a huge need for more investment, but until those industries are positioned to meet the demands, we will either have to continue drilling for oil, or massively cut out consumption.
I believe that it is possible to extract oil from the tar sands and deep underwater both safely and with as little environmental damage as possible, however, if our leaders fail to discuss if they are even interested in such activities, how are we to trust them to ensure the proper regulatory regimes are in place when corporations do begin to stick their pipes in the ground?
Joyce Murray shills for Big Natura
I’m sorry Joyce Murray, you just lost any chance to get my vote to stop the Cons from taking Vancouver-Quadra.
Here’s her latest statement in the House of Commons, dissected:
Ms. Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, each year during the first week in May, the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors leads a national awareness week in support of naturopathic medicine.
Naturopathic physicians are primary health care professionals with a minimum of seven years post-secondary education.
Nope. Only BC, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan actually license naturopathic doctors, everywhere else in Canada they can just go by ND with whatever training they feel like. It’s also worth noting that any number of years studying pseudo-scientific ideas does not make it any more legitimate. You can go to clown college, astrology school, or take UFO classes, but none of those qualify you to effectively treat diseases.
They practise naturopathic medicine, which is a distinct primary health care system that blends modern scientific knowledge with traditional and natural forms of medicine. The naturopathic philosophy is to stimulate the healing power of the body and treat the underlying cause of the disease.
From the first line in Wikipedia: “Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness.” The unique thing about naturopathy is that it blends real, evidence-based medicine, with pseudo-scientific ideas that have been debunked repeatedly. There is no reason to have a separate section of medicine where bogus treatments are included, except to rip people off. Apparently Ms. Murray supports a two-tier health system, only rather than at least getting cured for their money, people are being scammed by under-regulated snake-oil salesmen.
Each year during Naturopathic Medicine Week, naturopathic doctors hang up their lab coats and teach communities across Canada about naturopathic medicine, how naturopathic doctors can be valuable additions to health care teams and how they work with patients to identify the most effective solutions to individual health needs.
My biggest issue here is that even real doctors and scientists rarely wear lab-coats. This just paints a false picture that NDs are equivalent to real doctors. They’re not. If they were, they would be MDs and have completed real medical school.
Naturopathic Medicine Week is an excellent opportunity for all Canadians to learn more about achieving optimum health and I encourage Canadians to visit local naturopathic physicians in their communities.
I encourage you to stop shilling for Big Natura and stand up for evidence-based medicine. Our health care system is fragile enough as it is from years of Liberal and Conservative incremental cuts, it doesn’t need a woo-infestation to further discredit it.
For more debunking of Naturopathic Medicine Week, see the blog Skeptic North.
I signed the HST petition
I just got back from the Kitsilano Community Centre where the line-up to sign the anti-HST petition was out the door (about 20-30 people). The line-up was continuous with people showing up as others left.
While they said that they only have a few hundred signatures for Vancouver Point-Grey (my riding, which is represented by premier Gordon Campbell), they only just started collecting here on Thursday. Meanwhile, a few interior and northern ridings have already surpassed the 10% requirements.
Regardless if you like the HST in principle, or even this specific implementation of it, it is a great sign that despite dropping voter turnouts, democracy hasn’t died in Canada. This petition is especially important since this implementation was not debated or mentioned in the election last year, but was brought forward within days.
Meanwhile, businesses and the government are skirting the law attempting to defend the HST, despite the fact that none of them officially signed up to oppose the initiative. If they wanted to speak they should follow their own rules.
So it is starting to look to me like this petition may actually succeed and result in a public referendum on the legitimacy of the HST. If it makes it to that, you can bet that the government is going to lose it bad. After that, if the Liberals still don’t repeal it, they’re likely going to start losing their seats in recall initiatives (potentially including my own slim-margin winning MP).
Finally, the last thing I learned today was that the HST is coming into effect as early as May 1st for advance purchases for this summer. This includes airline and sporting tickets and community centre recreation passes.
So go find a location to sign the petition if you haven’t yet.
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