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If you want a lesson on how political communication strategies work, then check out the federal Liberal government's current campaign to sell its controversial carbon tax.

Oops, did I say "carbon tax"?; of course, I meant to say the government's controversial "price on pollution."

And yeah, you don't need a Master's degree in political science to see why the Liberals are calling their plan to hike the cost of gasoline a "price on pollution", instead of a tax.

Smart politicians that they are, the Liberals understand that voters, as a rule, are reluctant to vote for a party that's pushing for higher taxes, unless those higher taxes will be imposed exclusively on the "rich."

Hence, they came up with "price on pollution, which I'm sure are carefully chosen words.

In fact, I bet the Liberals held a series of focus groups which went something like this:

Pollster: So what if I said the government was going to tax carbon?

Focus Group Attendee: I hate the idea of a tax!

Pollster: OK, what if the government planned to put a price on carbon?

Focus Group attendee: If by "carbon" you mean gasoline, than I still hate the idea!

Pollster: Fine, what about if the government put a "price on pollution."

Focus Group attendee: Yeah that's better, I hate pollution.

And thus a Liberal communication strategy was born.

Mind you, the whole idea of putting a price on pollution is kind of silly since no one actually "buys" it.

At least, I've never seen anyone walk into a convenience store and say something like, "I'll take a pack of gum, a couple of chocolate bars and … oh yeah, three quarts of pollution."

Yet that doesn't matter.

All that matters is the Liberals are hoping this clever word usage will help them claim the higher moral ground when it comes to debating their energy policy.

Now, they can say anyone who opposes their plan to increase gas prices is "pro-pollution."

I did something similar many years ago when I was creating a media campaign for the National Citizens Coalition to oppose a federal government plan to impose restrictions on how much money independent organizations (such as the NCC) could spend on political advertising during elections.

In an effort to win the "word war" I called this attempt to muzzle free speech an "election gag law."

Sounds sinister, doesn't it?

Anyway, by using those strategically chosen words, I wanted to put proponents of the gag law on the verbal defensive.

And what helped my plan immeasurably, was that the media adopted the "gag law" terminology.

Headlines appeared such as, "Gag law heading to court" or "Groups steps up efforts to oppose gag law."

I suspect this is what the Liberals are hoping will happen for them.

In other words, they want the media to start talking in reports and articles and columns about the Liberal government's plan to put a "price on pollution."

Yet, it seems to me one problem the Liberals will face in this regard is that "price on pollution" might be just a little bit too cute.

What I mean is "price on pollution" is such an obvious euphemism for "gas tax" that it actually draws attention to itself.

It's like when a bald guy does the "comb over" hairstyle hoping it will hide his baldness, when it actually does the opposite.

My point is, given that people are already cynical when it comes to politicians, they're likely to say to themselves, "Oh yeah, a price on pollution, is just a nice way of saying, it's going to cost a small fortune to fill up my gas tank."

Plus the Conservatives and the conservative-leaning media will do everything they can to fan the flames of voter cynicism.

So bottom line: I'm not sure "price on pollution" will work for the Liberals.

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, "A tax by any other name, would still stink."

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


With less than a year left in the current parliament, the members of the Independent Senators Group are starting to get antsy about their "official" status within the Senate and its machinery, given that the Parliament of Canada Act only recognizes a role for government and the opposition.  Nominally, this has not been a problem with the Senate, as it has largely operated in a two-party structure for most of its existence, but with the introduction of the new batch of Independent senators, this new frontier has them feeling fairly vulnerable, especially if it should come to pass that Justin Trudeau is not re-elected, and a hypothetical Andrew Scheer government starts making partisan appointments again (as he has promised to).

The solution, according to the ISG, is to press for changes to the Act as soon as possible, and it's not something they can do alone.  In fact, they have made the perfectly legitimate case that the government in the House of Commons needs to initiate such a bill, because it would involve the spending of additional funds, and the Senate is forbidden from initiating money bills.  Fair enough.  The government has signalled some willingness to play along, but haven't made any firm commitments one way or the other, though one suspects that they will certainly entertain what the ISG has to say, if only to secure the legacy of Trudeau's vision of the Senate.

It can't be understated how much Trudeau's plan for a "more independent" Senate was done in a ham-fisted manner, first by kicking his party's senators out of caucus a move that crippled the institutional memory of his caucus, and centralized his power because there were fewer voices in the room that could push back without fear of having their nomination papers go unsigned.  These are not inconsequential in the greater scheme of our parliamentary democracy.  More to the point, these changes were done only with an eye to what was achievable without opening up the constitution not whether or not they'd be good for Canada or our parliamentary system.  Kind of like that line from Jurassic Park about being too concerned about whether or not he could do something as opposed to whether or not he should.

At first, the creation of a group of crossbench senators was a good thing it broke up the duopoly in the Senate's power dynamics that became the source of so many of its problems, and at one point, when the Senate Liberals, Conservatives, and Independents were in more-or-less equal standings, there was a good sense of equilibrium to how the Senate could and should operate.  But that was short-lived as more retirements came along, and thanks to all of the vacancies that Stephen Harper left, Trudeau has nearly finished filling them all, leaving his Independents just shy of an absolute majority in the Chamber.  And this is where the trouble is really getting started.

Because the vast majority of these Independents are new to the Senate, and haven't acclimatized to how the Senate works, or even learned how the rules themselves work, they're now demanding that the rules be changed to suit them with little regard for the unintended consequences of what they're trying to do.  It's a little like wanting to run before they've even finished leaning how to crawl they want these changes, regardless.

When democratic institutions minister Karina Gould appeared in Senate QP on October 23rd, Independent Senator Ratna Omidvar made her case for why they needed changes to the Act:

"Parliamentary groups other than the government and the opposition are not recognized.  The leadership of the independents and the independent Liberals is not compensated.  Further, under the status quo, decisions on allocation of time to a particular stage of a study on a bill, length of bells to summon senators, compositions of committees, et cetera, are based on agreements by the Government Representative and the opposition leader."

While Gould replied that she would entertain amendments to the Act, she left it up to Senators to decide what those would be.

Days later, Senator Yuen Pau Woo, the "Facilitator" of the ISG, followed up with letters to Gould and Senator Peter Harder, the Leader of the Government in the Senate err, "government representative," outlining their demanded changes.  They include replacing the sections of the Act that only grant additional funds to the government and opposition leadership to include the leadership positions of every "recognized party or parliamentary group" in the Senate; replacing the section that empowers the Leader of the Government and the Leader of the Opposition to make changes to the Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration so that it includes the leaders of all recognized parties and groups; ensuring that Senate consultations on government appointments be extended to all recognized parties and groups; and other changes regarding the roles and responsibilities of the Speaker Pro Temporein the absence of the Speaker.

More curiously, in his letter, Woo made explicit mention that the Government Leader should receive "additional remuneration" given that he and his team have a "unique mandate from any other recognized party or parliamentary group," and that they should be provided for within the framework of the Salaries Act.  There are two major concerns there one in that this solidifies the current ad hoc structure of the Government Leader that is divorced from Cabinet, no matter that it's dubious and should be done away with, but it also appears to try and flatter Harder, given that no one has managed to figure out why his office needs a $1.5 million budget when they don't have to manage a caucus, sponsor bills, or apparently negotiate timelines with any of the other caucus groups (and if Harder gets his way, that task would fall to a business committee, leaving him with even less work to ignore).  Currently, the ISG and the Senate Liberals are getting their additional funds and committee selection through sessional orders which are doing pretty much what they're asking for in terms of the changes, and it's a system that has worked so far.  And if it's not broken, perhaps we shouldn't try to fix it kind of like the Senate itself.  Trying to monkey with governing legislation could blow up in everyone's faces, and it could damage the institution for a generation because nobody knows what they're doing.  Do we really want to risk that kind damage to Parliament, for the sake of finishing a prime minister's ham-fisted vision?

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.