Decryption | Will it raise, will it not raise, the federal budget?

(Ottawa) The first figures are out of the oven and they are nothing to feed the Liberals. They who will soon have devoted a month to promoting the content of the budget prepared tailor-made for millennials and generation Z do not seem to be reaping the rewards. Autopsy of the liberal recipe.

A gap that persists

The budget has not changed anything: with 24% of voting intentions, the Liberals remain very far behind the Conservatives, at 43%, shows an Ipsos poll^⁠1 published Tuesday. And what did we think of this financial year? It inspired a shrug of the shoulders (43%) or two thumbs down (40%) against only 17% of favorable opinions, according to this survey commissioned by Global News. If Justin Trudeau’s troops hope to narrow the gap by 5% every six months starting in July, as reported by the Globe and Mail in its weekend edition, there is still a way to go.

“It’s certainly possible,” however, believes Dan Arnold, strategist at the firm Pollara Strategic Insights. Especially since a budget alone rarely moves the needle, notes the former Liberal Party pollster. “When I was in the Prime Minister’s office, we commissioned surveys after the budget was tabled, and they showed that 40% of people had heard about it, but only 2 or 3% could name one or two specific measures. »

Preaching in the desert?

Hence the pre-budget media hype that began on March 27. “The Liberals had no choice but to go all out on this budget and reappropriate the discourse that was truly in the hands of the opposition,” argues Stéphanie Chouinard, associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of the Canada. His reading is shared by Fred DeLorey, director of the Conservative Party’s national campaign in 2021. “Their strategy is understandable because they are being crushed at the moment. So in that sense, it was the right thing to do. If the numbers don’t move, there will be a problem. This will mean that people no longer listen to Justin Trudeau,” he says.

Another problem: “fewer and fewer Canadians follow traditional media” – in short, those who covered the pre-budget announcements – and “the Liberals cannot afford advertising on social networks, unlike the Conservatives” , adds Stéphanie Chouinard. “I think they are aware that a change in approach is necessary,” notes Lori Turnbull, professor in the management department at Dalhousie University, in Nova Scotia.

Long campaign electoral budgetary

Whitehorse, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Toronto, Thunder Bay, La Tuque: ministers were scattered across the country on Tuesday to provide what we call after-sales service for the budget. If this month of traveling the country will have a cost for taxpayers, it does not contravene the financing rules, agree the experts interviewed. “The budget is a tool at their disposal,” argues Dan Arnold. “All governments do it and all governments should do it. I don’t see any problem with that,” says Fred DeLorey.

In any case, it would be “very difficult to regulate,” notes Lori Turnbull. “There is a thin line between what is political and what constitutes a public service. But it seems to me that there is a distinction to be made between the presentation of a new measure and an advertising campaign to praise an existing program,” she believes. In 2015, when he was minister, Pierre Poilievre was criticized for wearing a polo shirt adorned with the Conservative logo when promoting the child care benefit.

Electoral ammunition?

In this budget, ministers are bringing tens of billions in spending to the country. What cartridges will be left when the electoral hostilities are launched? “We created wedges (divides) with the increase in the tax on capital gains, the school food program and free access to contraceptive methods,” details a liberal source who requested anonymity, not being authorized to discuss openly of strategy.

“I don’t think they will have much more to offer in the next campaign, although I am sure they will find something else,” analyzes Dan Arnold. And if the measures are not divisive enough, there will always be the contrast between Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre to highlight in broad strokes, he concludes.

^⁠1 The survey was conducted online on April 17 and 18 with a sample of 1,000 adults. Its margin of error is ±3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Quotas and weighting were used to ensure that the composition of the sample reflects that of the Canadian population, according to Ipsos.