Forward guidance toward better-informed electorate

Prime Minister Mark Carney has a new communications strategy. It is a positive step toward informing Canadians about what their nation’s government is doing, the reasons why, and how those efforts will affect each of them.

The PM has released a video entitled “Forward Guidance” on YouTube — already viewed more than 300,000 times — in which he summarizes Canada’s efforts to build new trade relationships internationally, and explains why it is necessary for his government to do so. He says the world has become more “dangerous and divided,” forcing Canada to re-evaluate its international relationships and undergo a shift in its approach.

He claims that “Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses — weaknesses that we must correct,” and adds it would be a mistake for Canadians to wait for “the good old days” of co-operation with the U.S. to return. Given that reality, he argues “The U.S. has changed and we must respond.”

He acknowledges his government’s efforts to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers and build major projects in order to boost international trade are ambitious, but insists that “in a crisis, fortune favours the bold.” To that end, he explains that he adopted the phrase “Forward Guidance” while working as a central banker in response to various crises that arose, and that it involves acting with “overwhelming force against our problems until they were solved.” He is clearly saying that Canada must, and will, approach the current challenges with the same resolve.

Finally, the PM concludes his remarks with the commitment that “I promise you, I will never sugar-coat our challenges.” He says that “I will talk with you directly and regularly about our plan — why we’re doing what we’re doing, what’s working, what isn’t.”

Those are refreshing and reassuring words, but there is often a vast difference between politicians’ words and deeds. Having now committed to regularly communicate with Canadians in an open and honest manner, Carney has created the expectation, if not the obligation, that he will honour that promise for the balance of his mandate. If he can do that, the strategy has the potential to both inform and re-engage Canadians and, in the long term, to reverse the growing danger of voter disengagement and apathy. That, in turn, can serve to build a more cohesive and better-informed national consensus on both the issues facing the nation and the solutions required.

On that point, we agree with Abacus Data CEO David Coletto, who said on Sunday that the transparency Carney is promising “does not weaken authority. It builds it.” The pollster added that when leaders explain their thinking in plain language, “Even skeptics become more patient and some opponents soften when they feel informed rather than managed. People are far more willing to grant room to manoeuvre when they understand the destination.”

He adds that transparency of that kind is “so different than anything else we’ve seen before.”

The first part of that assertion is correct, but not the latter. That is because Carney’s approach is neither novel nor innovative.

Between 1933 and 1944, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt delivered a series of evening radio addresses to Americans. The speeches, which became known as “fireside chats,” were informal conversations, delivered by the president in a reassuring and conversational tone, that explained the positions and actions taken by the U.S. government. Similarly, Winston Churchill gave numerous radio addresses on the BBC during the Second World War. Since then, many political leaders have followed their example, regularly broadcasting discussions of various issues.

Beyond those historical precedents, many politicians have been active on social media for years, using digital platforms as tools to communicate directly with voters in an unfiltered manner, unchallenged by rivals, the media and the public. Carney may be the first Canadian prime minister to adopt that approach, with promises of more videos to come, but he is hardly breaking new ground.

That said, we welcome the PM’s commitment to communicate more directly and more often with Canadians.