Spinning truth Tory strategy

The scale of the backlash over Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s proposal to revamp Old Age Security was clear in the hyperbole shouted from the government benches Thursday.

One Tory MP after another stood during the debate over an NDP motion to “reject calls by the prime minister to balance the Conservative deficit on the backs of Canada’s seniors,” or during member statements and question period to accuse their rivals of “scaremongering.”

None of the backbenchers, ministers or even the prime minister bothered to defend or even explain what Mr. Harper meant in telling a European audience last week that Canada would move to secure its retirement income support program. Instead, the government’s line is that the Opposition simply is trying to panic seniors by raising this issue.

If that’s the Opposition’s intent, it’s working. Ottawa press gallery members report that Conservative MPS showed up at Wednesday’s caucus meeting ready to beg for a retreat after hearing from constituents seriously concerned that the government would be attacking seniors’ entitlements.

However, the strategy of turning the table on the Opposition has proven in the past to be a successful one for this government. As Globe and Mail columnist Jeffery Simpson wrote recently, the Conservative government has increased the number of information officers across all departments by 16 per cent — this at a time when it has clamped down in an unprecedented way on the amount of information the public is allowed to get.

Some of these new information officials could be picking up the workload of officials from the RCMP, military, environment, and other agencies who used to speak directly to Canadians before the government began forcing them to vet their messages through political minders.

Even this practice has its political pitfalls, however. This week The Canadian Press reported on a media event staged by the Immigration Department for Sun News, with ministry officials posing as immigrants. The government’s explanation is that this was an error by a minor departmental official and Canadians should forget about it.

Also this week, Philip Cross, a senior economic statistician with Statistics Canada, resigned in part because the agency was clamping down on free speech and because he was forced to use questionable data after the government made the formerly mandatory long-form census voluntary. The comment by Industry Minister Christian Paradis was that he is delighted that the response rate for the new survey was so high.

But turning the message on its head is a critical strategy for the Harper government. As Postmedia columnist Stephen Maher points out, by cutting taxes, driving up spending and transferring an increasing share of the burden for flagship social programs such OAS and health care to the provinces, the Conservatives have put themselves in the ideal position to slash federal programs under the banner of fiscal responsibility.

All they have to do is to keep those information officers busy trying to convince Canadians that the Tories are doing the opposite.