Mid-week podcast: Cutting through the economic spin

How do party leaders take the same set of data — this week's GDP numbers for the first two quarters of 2015 confirming Canada is in a 'technical' recession — and arrive at three totally different conclusions?

It's called political spin, and it's a skill we analyse on our midweek election podcast with Mark Kennedy, the parliamentary bureau chief for the Ottawa Citizen, and Jennifer Ditchburn, parliamentary reporter for the Canadian Press.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper:

MK: All the leaders wanted to put their own spin on this, and on this one, Mr. Harper dodged the political bullet. Most politicians wouldn't boast about that kind of growth because it's very negligible, but he's pointing to it as a sign of what may be coming. But is it enough to have growth of one per cent a year?

JD: It's a case of very much cherry-picking what you want from those numbers, which are short-term numbers — we're not looking at the long-term health of the economy, let's be frank.

And I think the media's to blame for that too, because we're so fixated on whatever jobs numbers or trade numbers or GDP numbers that are coming out for a particular quarter. That allows the leaders to look at these little slices of data.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair:

MK: It's the flip side of the coin [to Harper]. The interesting political dynamic we now have is the two parties on the left fighting over what the best approach is.

JD: The NDP, to a certain extent, had to go in this direction. They had to take a right turn and convince people they could safely park their boat [with the NDP]. Any bad news seems to be good news for [Mulcair].

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau:

MK: [The Conservatives and NDP] are saying, 'look, the latest numbers suggest that if we were in a recession, we're coming out of it awfully fast and by the time this money would be spent, talk of a recession would be long gone so why spend the money?'

The Liberals say there is more to it than that. I get the suggestion from the Liberals that these are, quote-unquote, investments to improve our communities AND to create jobs.

JD: It's a huge gamble to say, 'hey, bring it on, I think there's going to be a deficit and I want to spend all that money.' Whether people will look at that and think, 'that guy's being honest, that's a good thing,' or whether they'll think, 'what, a deficit?!' — I don't know.

Looking ahead to trade and jobs numbers out later this week:

JD: Don't put too much emphasis on these monthly reports that come out one week per month. They don't mean all that much taken in isolation.

MK: But you can be sure all of those politicians will — they'll use those numbers to their own advantage. Perhaps one of the more interesting numbers will be at the end of September...we'll learn what the GDP was for July. That will be just three weeks before the campaign, so we'll learn, indeed, are we coming out of a recession as Mr Harper suggests, or are we in one?