Will Justin Trudeau end partisan government advertising?

Ad Hawk is an occasional series evaluating the effectiveness of political advertising.

The next federal election will be held no later than Oct. 21, 2019, and while you won't see lawn signs anytime soon, what's been called the "permanent campaign" has already begun.

That concept dates back to the 1970s, when political strategist and pollster Patrick Caddell drafted a memo for U.S. president-elect Jimmy Carter, in which he advised that "governing with public approval requires a continuing political campaign."

We've seen plenty of evidence of it in Canada.

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It starts with branding. The outgoing government wasn't called the Government of Canada. It was branded the "Harper government" after a directive went out to public servants in 2010.

That may not have broken any rules, but when the state actively brands the Government of Canada by using the name of the governing party's leader, it's campaigning.

There's a more insidious aspect to this rebranding of the Government of Canada for political advantage. In its purest form, the Canada brand is expressed through the Canada "wordmark."

The wordmark is the global symbol of the Government of Canada and consists of the word "Canada" with the flag symbol set over the last "a".

The Treasury Board defines it as the global identifier of the Government of Canada. There are guidelines to ensure its integrity. It should be "displayed prominently, in generous open space, free from close association with any interfering or distracting elements" and "it may not form part of a headline, phrase or sentence."

There must have been an exception made earlier this year when the sign-off in Government of Canada advertising included the words "Strong, Proud, Free" under the wordmark.

The words are obviously derived from the national anthem. However, it's also similar to the slogan the Conservatives used extensively for partisan purposes while campaigning, on the party's website and on Stephen Harper's weekly 24/7 videos.

Don't say 'Trudeau government' 

Scott Brison, the new Treasury Board president, said last week the federal government would return to using "Government of Canada" in its communications.

"We are not going from one leader's brand to the next leader's brand in terms of naming of our government. We are the
Government of Canada and it should always have been the Government of Canada," he said in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen.

We are not going from one leader's brand to the next leader's brand in terms of naming of our government.- Scott Brison, Treasury Board president

Then there's the estimated $750 million spent since 2006 on government ads. Not all of it was twisted for partisan purposes, but much of it was. The ubiquitous "Economic Action Plan" advertisements certainly stood out, yet there were other less obvious efforts at leveraging public resources to further the governing party's agenda.

Liberals to end partisan ads

All this is supposed to change. Really change. The Liberal promise to ban partisan government ads was in the party's platform: "As outlined in Liberal MP David McGuinty's Bill C-544, we will appoint an advertising commissioner to assist the auditor general in providing oversight on government advertising. Proposed messages will be reviewed by the advertising commissioner to ensure they are non-partisan and related to actual government requirements." 

Beyond messaging, Bill C-544 is meant to ensure that advertising campaigns are appropriate, proportional and a prudent use of public funds. In other words, it's meant to keep a campaign's budget at the level required to deliver its communication objectives, not prop up the government.

Section 23.8 of the latest publication of Bill C-544 states that advertising shall be a reasonable means of either informing the public of current or proposed government policies, programs or services available to them, informing the public of their rights and responsibilities under the law, or encouraging or discouraging specific social behaviour in the public interest.

Partisanship would be eliminated: advertising shall not include the name, voice or image of a minister, MP or senator and it shall not have as a primary objective to foster a positive impression of the governing party or a negative impression of a critic.

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Where to draw the line? 

Advertising isn't an exact science. On what basis would the commissioner determine that an ad's primary objective is to foster a positive impression of the governing party? This debatable grey area won't be spelled out in the advertising briefs given to ad agencies.

When I worked on an informational campaign to introduce Ontarians to the new health card with photo ID in 1995, government officials chose the campaign that put Bob Rae's NDP government under the best possible light. "You have reasons to smile Ontario" was the campaign's slogan — reasons to smile for the camera and reasons to support the government.

Back in the late '70s, the first Parti Québécois government ran a campaign with the slogan "On s'attache au Quebec" designed to convince Quebecers to use their seatbelts. In French, the line "everyone buckles up in Quebec" can also be understood to mean "everyone is attached to Quebec," a convenient complementary message a few years before the 1980 referendum.

Or take the colour red. It's part of the Liberals' brand. This was a problem in Ontario where the auditor general recently blasted Kathleen Wynne's Liberals for failing to follow the restrictions in the province's Government Advertising Act.

According to Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, the Liberals were forced to turn red bricks into brown bricks in advertisements and a Foodland Ontario ad was judged to have too may red strawberries, red apples and red peppers in it. 

Laurier's and now Trudeau's phrase "sunny ways" is already part of the Liberals' partisan identity. It may be tempting to leverage its political value in Government of Canada messaging when the dark clouds inevitably roll in.

Eric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing, Inc., a strategic consulting firm. He specializes in the Quebec market.