Watching the ‘Communications State’ in a policy-free Canada
The Hill Times – Canada’s Politics and Government Newspaper – has an ongoing special series called Hillclimbers that chronicles new additions to federal Ministerial political staff along with staff who leave to go elsewhere.
Since I first began reading this series, I must admit to my surprise on a number of scores.
First, Hillclimbers often have a history of joining government from various government relations (GR) outfits, pollsters, other departments and from various ‘institutes’ and ‘shops’ that do business with government.
When they leave, they also appear to return to all these same places within an overall ecosystem – you can call it a bubble – of government roles and advisory functions.
Musical chairs or so it seems.
Indeed they seem to circulate again and again through these various roles and functions.
The positions that they inhabit overwhelmingly relate to ‘communications’ activities. They are social media assistants and coordinators, communications assistants, communications managers and directors, stakeholder and issues management coordinators and the like.
Occasionally a new hire will appear to have a policy role although there seem to be many more communications staff than policy people.
Watching the Hillclimbers has me worried.
I grew up believing that policy development and analysis has a more important role than communications but the sheer numbers of communications people seems to show a new centrality and dominance of communications.
All well and good. The world changes and we must all change with it.
But let’s try to understand what’s changed as we begin to inhabit what has started, however slowly, to become a policy-free world.
In the policy-free world
In 1964, Abraham Kaplan noted the ‘law of the instrument’:
Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.
Another Abraham (Maslow) said:
In a world where communications dominates policy, then all problems that governments face become first and foremost communications challenges as opposed to policy issues.
Two recent examples are telling:
- the Environment Minister’s comments that the federal government would not be building any more new roads; and
- the cost and lack of oversight regarding the ArriveCan online application.
In two television shows – CBC’s Power and Politics and CTV’s Power Play – each replicate the centrality of communications through their choice of guests and subject matter.
The perennial guests on each show share many things in common with Hillclimbers as they are most often communications and government relations experts with an added sprinkle of former politicians and pollsters.
When these panels considered these debacles, it was noteworthy that none of the guests discussed whether federal roadbuilding or the ArriveCan App were good ideas.
No one weighed in on whether either represented good policy.
No.
All we heard about was unacceptable costs, botched administration and endless communications problems.
We found out that the Environment Minister was ‘off-message’, delivered his remarks out of context, allowed himself to be defined by others, and opened himself to ridicule.
The bureaucrats in charge of the Arrive Can App fared even worse.
They too were ‘off message’ but in their consummate care to parse Ministerial responsibilities for security and procurement, they could not credibly name the Ministers responsible for the App nor the chain of command within government to identify parties responsible.
All of these communications issues of course are important but in the ‘Communications State’, they are everything.
But where there is no policy anchor to neither discussions nor debate, the ‘Communications State’ simply goes batshit wild.
When the good ship Communications State leaves port without a policy anchor
On the road building incident, it is worth quoting Andrew Coyne at some length because he nails what is allowed to happen in discussions where the policy anchor is loosened and the ship of state leaves port:
Imagine thinking we could just do without roads! Doesn’t he know what a big country this is? Doesn’t he know that people need roads to drive their cars on? How out of touch can these enviro-fanatics get?
That will give you the flavour of the reaction to Steven Guilbeault’s musings in an address to a Montreal conference earlier in the week. So it is with some relief that I can report the minister did not actually propose to eliminate the country’s extensive network of roads, all 1 million kilometres of it. He did not even propose to eliminate a part of it. He just proposed that we should not add to it.
Actually he didn’t even say that. He just said the federal government would not fund any additional roads. (“Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure.”) Cities and provinces could still build new roads to their hearts’ content; the feds, for their part, would continue to pay to maintain existing roads.”
The hysteria campaign was already into overdrive. “Does this Minister understand that most Canadians don’t live in downtown Montreal,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fumed online. “Most of us can’t just head out the door in the snow and rain and just walk 10km to work.”
What Coyne demonstrates is just how bad it can get when policy statements and real design are cast adrift, a situation that the ‘Communications State’ not only allows but promotes.
Elected Premiers can credibly speculate that lack of new federal funding on roads could result in all Canada’s roads suddenly disappearing altogether leaving 40 million Canadians to walk to each of their daily destinations.
I hope I don’t have to say that this is nuts.
In the ‘Communications State’ in a policy-free Canada, we can talk for weeks about overspending and rushed contracts without once considering why the ArriveCan App was developed and implemented nor how it was intended to assist Canadians during the pandemic and afterwards.
But we will hear quickly and often from communications experts how balkanized tribal constituencies in Canada will react to it once it is in play.
Pollsters and pundits will tell us how the roads and ArriveCan are ‘playing’ among ‘red-meat conservatives’ and urban women.
Of course, all constituencies all react badly – but that’s their new job in the Communications State.
So what can we conclude from the dominance of the ‘communications state’ in a policy-free Canada?
Who’s in and who’s out
We can first settle on who is on the inside and outside.
Here are the charter members of the bubble that comprises the ‘Communications State’:
- The Centre: Prime minister’s and Premier’s offices
- Communications advisors to Ministers
- Government relations pollsters, companies, and institutes
- Television hosts and guests on shows with the word ‘power’ in the name of the show; and
- Auditors General
And who are the outsiders?
- The House of Commons
- The Senate
- Civil and/or Public Services
- Ordinary citizens and residents of Canada.
What’s in a name
Just one example of this new reality is that rather than fixing the Climate rebate, some members of the Communications State renamed it.
This has reminded many of us of the celebrated Knights of NI from Monty Pythons’ Holy Grail where the Knight in charge of the enchanted forest says:
“The Knights Who Say “Ni” are now the Knights Who Say “Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptang Zoo Boing,” and we now require the Knights of Camelot to cut down the largest tree in the forest with… a herring!”
Meanwhile, at the top of Parliament Hill, Maslov’s hammer becomes a new name for a benefit; while messages change, policies are nailed in place.
No wonder little ever changes.
Js February 23, 2024