Federal Liberals Strategy Backfires in Ottawa: A Communications Post Mortem

This week wasn’t a good one for Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. On Tuesday, the party brought forward a motion call on the government to include a broader range of programs, including contraception, in the maternal health initiative for developing countries it is presenting at this summer’s G8 summit. The aim was to split the Conservatives on social issues. But instead the motion split the liberals. Several Liberal MPs who felt the wording of the motion implied support of abortion failed to show up for the vote and three (John McKay, Paul Szabo and Dan McTeague) explicitly voted against it. Liberal MP Gurbax Malhi abstained.

The problem wasn’t with the strategy. The conservatives are well known to have serious internal divisions on issues like abortion, gay rights, and other social issues connected to religion. More importantly, the majority of Canadians tend to be progressive in their views surrounding social issues and religious issues like creationism vs. evolution. By effectively communicating the conservative party’s more outlandish statements and actions the liberals have been able to paint the Tories in a light that’s unappealing to the majority of urban voters who live outside Alberta. Done well this can be a very effective strategy (see the attacks on Jason Kenney’s editing of the Canadian newcomer’s guide). Done poorly, you have Tuesday’s debacle.

The issue is with the implementation of the strategy. This is a good example where a smart communications strategy was fouled up by poor planning and the lack of internal consultation. Instead of designing a strategy for the motion, outlining it in caucus, and then identifying MPs who were waffling for individual discussion, the game plan was present first under the mistaken belief that everyone would buy in.

That wasn’t the case and the result was abstaining and voting against the party line in a whipped vote. In any sort of communications operation, it’s critical to make sure everyone – be they internal or external stakeholders – are on side. Failing to do this usually leads to cracks. In a political context, where both sides are intently focused on any appearance of disagreement, this can be particularly damaging.