So the Liberals have launched their Family Pack initiative.
I'm fairly disappointed in their messaging. I'll give it to the Conversatives, they message with decisiveness. The Liberals seem to message based on a strategy that I'd call 'quarter measures' or band-aid solutions.
University is too expensive? We'll give you $1,500 a year towards it. Ok, great, so people will graduate with 35k of debt instead of 40k of debt and still have no job.
Healthcare is a mess? Ok, we'll let you take six months off work to care for a sick family member at home.
Energy prices are going through the roof over the next 10 years? We'll give you a tax break so you can renovate your home with more energy efficient solutions (but don't ask us to actually address energy costs themselves).
Worried about retirement? We'll let you contribute more to CPP (even though you probably aren't contributing enough to your RRSPs as it is and if you are unemployed, under employed or a student none of this really matters).
These kind of strategies and messaging are going to ensure the Conservatives win again, probably with a majority.
What the Liberals should have done if they really wanted to win was message based around the real concerns that Canadians have. Off the top of my head I can name seven issues that should be at the very forefront of their messaging strategy:
1) Jobs - what are they doing to enable job creation in Canada? (as far as I can tell, nothing).
2) Retirement - instead of this CPP stuff that 90 per cent of people don't understand anyway, just slash the tax rate on RRSP withdrawals (or get rid of it all together).That alone would have every baby boomer in the country voting for you.
3) Energy - why does gas cost $1.25/litre? Do something about gas prices and you'll get a ton of votes.
4) Food - Food inflation is already starting and is set to rise something like seven per cent this year alone. What's the solution? More food banks for the poor?
5) The Internet - Canada's carriers tried to implement UBB. Is Canada giving up on Internet-based innovation or will we lead the world? And what are the Liberals doing to make that happen?
6) Education - forget $1,500. How about tying subsidies that the Universities get to job placement? Force the universities to actually care about whether their graduates get jobs. Graduating students need jobs, not discounts on the debt they racked up.
7) Corporate tax - enough with the 18 per cent tax rate talk, everyone knows it's bogus and a red herring. Instead talk about corporate taxes as a percentage paid of overall taxes collected. So how much of the tax revenue the government gets is from citizens and how much from corporations?
Bonus: healthcare - I list this as a bonus because while it's important, I don't think anyone cares that much anymore. Most people have accepted that our healthcare will deteriorate as time goes on and the only way to fix it would be to allocate more money to it (which means more taxes, which no one is willing to pay).
Anyway, quarter measures and band-aid solutions won't win you the election. You have to know what the issues are that real people are struggling with and clearly articulate how you can do a better job on those issues than the other party.
Now, if you look at the Conservatives, their messaging strategy has always been focused around jobs and tax cuts. Their negative attack ads, I think, lose them voters, but their core messaging strategies work very well because they speak to things Canadians actually care about.
If the Liberals were smart they'd talk about how the Conservative's promises have not worked. How education, gas, and food costs are going through the roof. How graduates can't get jobs. How the Internet was almost usurpped by Canada's big three carriers (and how we have an anti-competitive business landscape in Canada, driving up costs to consumers). How the HST has raised prices on consumers (and by association helped lower the standard of living of Canadians).
But because the Liberals are being driven by their own myopic view of the real world they instead are focusing on issues, which while relevant, are not what voters are going to cast their vote on.
The Conservatives are smart this way. Job creation and tax cuts aren't the things they really care about first and foremost, but it's what they lead with, because they know it resonates.
I thought the Liberals might have a good shot this time around because there is plenty of issues on which the Conservatives can be criticized on, the most basic of which would be are you better off today than you were five years ago? And yet, it appears as though they are going to miss the boat yet again.
I'm fairly disappointed in their messaging. I'll give it to the Conversatives, they message with decisiveness. The Liberals seem to message based on a strategy that I'd call 'quarter measures' or band-aid solutions.
University is too expensive? We'll give you $1,500 a year towards it. Ok, great, so people will graduate with 35k of debt instead of 40k of debt and still have no job.
Healthcare is a mess? Ok, we'll let you take six months off work to care for a sick family member at home.
Energy prices are going through the roof over the next 10 years? We'll give you a tax break so you can renovate your home with more energy efficient solutions (but don't ask us to actually address energy costs themselves).
Worried about retirement? We'll let you contribute more to CPP (even though you probably aren't contributing enough to your RRSPs as it is and if you are unemployed, under employed or a student none of this really matters).
These kind of strategies and messaging are going to ensure the Conservatives win again, probably with a majority.
What the Liberals should have done if they really wanted to win was message based around the real concerns that Canadians have. Off the top of my head I can name seven issues that should be at the very forefront of their messaging strategy:
1) Jobs - what are they doing to enable job creation in Canada? (as far as I can tell, nothing).
2) Retirement - instead of this CPP stuff that 90 per cent of people don't understand anyway, just slash the tax rate on RRSP withdrawals (or get rid of it all together).That alone would have every baby boomer in the country voting for you.
3) Energy - why does gas cost $1.25/litre? Do something about gas prices and you'll get a ton of votes.
4) Food - Food inflation is already starting and is set to rise something like seven per cent this year alone. What's the solution? More food banks for the poor?
5) The Internet - Canada's carriers tried to implement UBB. Is Canada giving up on Internet-based innovation or will we lead the world? And what are the Liberals doing to make that happen?
6) Education - forget $1,500. How about tying subsidies that the Universities get to job placement? Force the universities to actually care about whether their graduates get jobs. Graduating students need jobs, not discounts on the debt they racked up.
7) Corporate tax - enough with the 18 per cent tax rate talk, everyone knows it's bogus and a red herring. Instead talk about corporate taxes as a percentage paid of overall taxes collected. So how much of the tax revenue the government gets is from citizens and how much from corporations?
Bonus: healthcare - I list this as a bonus because while it's important, I don't think anyone cares that much anymore. Most people have accepted that our healthcare will deteriorate as time goes on and the only way to fix it would be to allocate more money to it (which means more taxes, which no one is willing to pay).
Anyway, quarter measures and band-aid solutions won't win you the election. You have to know what the issues are that real people are struggling with and clearly articulate how you can do a better job on those issues than the other party.
Now, if you look at the Conservatives, their messaging strategy has always been focused around jobs and tax cuts. Their negative attack ads, I think, lose them voters, but their core messaging strategies work very well because they speak to things Canadians actually care about.
If the Liberals were smart they'd talk about how the Conservative's promises have not worked. How education, gas, and food costs are going through the roof. How graduates can't get jobs. How the Internet was almost usurpped by Canada's big three carriers (and how we have an anti-competitive business landscape in Canada, driving up costs to consumers). How the HST has raised prices on consumers (and by association helped lower the standard of living of Canadians).
But because the Liberals are being driven by their own myopic view of the real world they instead are focusing on issues, which while relevant, are not what voters are going to cast their vote on.
The Conservatives are smart this way. Job creation and tax cuts aren't the things they really care about first and foremost, but it's what they lead with, because they know it resonates.
I thought the Liberals might have a good shot this time around because there is plenty of issues on which the Conservatives can be criticized on, the most basic of which would be are you better off today than you were five years ago? And yet, it appears as though they are going to miss the boat yet again.
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