You could call it the world\u2019s first tweetable budget. Or maybe you could call it a Lawrence Welk budget, as it was designed to offend as few people as possible.
Regardless of the label, the latest federal budget was a political document that didn\u2019t have much to do with lasting fiscal policy. Indeed, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has the distinction of delivering a budget speech that was almost number-free.
Former New York state governor Mario Cuomo once advised politicians to campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Flaherty\u2019s budget speech read like a campaign stump speech, with its short, tweetable sentences, cute phrases and the odd folksy anecdote.
So, Budget Lite was part of a feel-good strategy by a minority government looking for an elusive parliamentary majority. Hold the tough stuff until that majority finally comes; then go to work on the deficit, productivity, transfer payments and other ugly things.
But what happens if the next election doesn\u2019t produce a majority government \u2014 particularly when irritants such as the Parliamentary budget officer keep reminding people of the D-word?
While the 2010 budget doesn\u2019t appear to have hurt the federal government, it hasn\u2019t helped the Conservatives, either. Budgets may come and budgets may go. But this one came and went into the dustbin of history in record speed. (In fairness, the Liberals haven\u2019t been eager to talk much about tough topics, such as possible tax increases, either.)
As pollster Nik Nanos has noted, the budget was not a launching pad for a general election campaign. Neither was the throne speech, with its miscue on the national anthem.
The governing party didn\u2019t even get much of a bump in the polls from the Olympics.
When it comes to the numbers that do count in politics, about the only thing the Tories have going for them is the fact that the Liberals aren\u2019t going anywhere in the polls, either.
It may be a year until the next election, and the leader of the next majority government may have yet to secure a seat in the House of Commons. With the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois entrenched, and Toronto and other large urban centres serving as Liberal fortresses, and the Conservatives owning most of the west and rural Canada, it is going to be very difficult for anyone to win a majority. Unless, of course, the Liberals and NDP one day see the light and merge.
Maybe it is time for both of those major parties to recalibrate their strategy and mindset. A parliamentary minority doesn\u2019t have to be a holding period.
Cases in point were the Pearson minority governments, which governed from 1963 to 1968. These were governments that managed to produce the Canada Pension Plan, a national health-care system, a national flag and the Officials Languages Act.
Of course, the minority era of the 1960s didn\u2019t end until Pierre Trudeau showed up to consolidate the emerging baby-boomer vote in 1968. That explains why Stephen Harper has been on YouTube and Finance Canada has a Twitter account.
Perhaps the current minority government might see some critical mass in the polls if it let Canadians know what vision it has for the country. In the malaise of the current political environment, the government probably doesn\u2019t have much to lose.
But that would mean the Harper Tories taking risks, especially when it comes to easing up on internal debate, currently stifled by an iron grip that brooks no disagreement. With more discussion, the Tories might develop a policy platform that Canadians will want to buy into.
Indeed, a prime reason this government was elected in the first place was because it had some fresh ideas, while the Liberal regime was showing its age.
Today, four years after taking office, the message that this government is sending voters is one of \u201ctough decisions if necessary but not necessarily tough decisions.\u201d That was much the way Mackenzie King muddled his way through the conscription crisis.
The Tories might also want to rethink their growth strategy.
In the past, the major parties have followed a \u201cbig tent\u201d approach, trying to accommodate as many views as possible under one banner.
Since the Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties merged to form the current Conservatives, Tory strategists have followed a model known as \u201cnarrowcasting.\u201d That means going after the support of a specific core vote \u2014 in this case, older, socially conservative voters \u2014 and relying on that base to talk up the party\u2019s platform and bring in the swing voters.
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