The campaign machine

Curious about what a party database looks like? My colleague Tonda MacCharles has written a very useful primer about the Conservatives' system. 

If you click on this link here  Download CIMS you can see a PowerPoint presentation someone sent me a while back. I'm told it's an antique version of CIMS -- that the current system is far snazzier. But it'll give you an idea of how it works. 

And by the way, the Liberals and the NDP have impressive, similar machinery too, though I hear they lack the scope and data  of what the Conservatives have accumulated.  Happy to post more information on their systems too, if anyone has it in web-postable state. 

Let's see the scripts

One word should leap out in today's Star story, by Tonda MacCharles, about further damning evidence in what we're calling the robocalls  scandal of the last election. The word is "script." And we're not talking about the Oscars here. 

As Tonda reports, with evidence of three former employees, the Responsive Marketing Group  was  given a script, which had been written by the Conservative Party.  In this case, the script allegedly contained instructions to tell voters the Election-Day ballot-box  location had changed. 

Annette Desgagné, 46, said it became clear to her — after so many people complained that the “new” voting locations made no sense or were “way the hell across town” — that the live operators were, in fact, misdirecting voters.

“We’re sending people to the wrong place,” Desgagné recalled telling her supervisor.

She said she has no way of knowing whether in fact the poll station locations she gave listeners were wrong addresses or phony locations. But she said the “feedback” elicited by the script was so negative, “we started getting antsy.”

To be clear: If there was any deliberately false information in that script,  that is   one large, legal no-no in Canada, where we tend to take elections and access to the ballot box seriously. Right now, all we have is some  massive coincidence of all these people, whether in Kitchener, Guelph, or as many as 30 other ridings, getting calls to say their voting location had changed. The Conservatives are saying that they provided only true, helpful,  factual information to voters, though some mistakes might have been made. 

Let's go back to the December controversy over the calls made to Irwin Cotler's riding, in which constituents reported they were told that Mr. Cotler was resigning. The Conservative Party admitted that it paid the firm to do these calls and that it tightly managed what callers were supposed to say. In the process, we also learned a bit more about how these call centres work. In fact, numerous Conservative spokespersons, media outlets and the Marketing Research Intelligence Association were given copies of the script in question. 

 Watch  this interview with Nick Kouvalis of Campaign Research, in which he lays it out. He was talking about scripts too. An excerpt: "Campaign Research was hired by the party. Right? They produce a script. We know what the rules and regulations are, and the jurisdictions around the country.  We make sure that's within the rules. And then we deliver the script."  

Note:   The whole defence in the Cotler-call controversy was  that these robocall firms were just calling people with the words the Conservative party supplied to them. If someone went off script, well, that wasn't the fault  of Campaign Research or the party. 

So. What we need to see now is the script that the Conservative Party supplied to Responsive  Marketing Group. The party was able to produce one for the Cotler calls controversy; I'm assuming it has the one supplied to this firm too. In fact,  let's see the scripts the Conservatives wrote for all the call centres. If it's all true information, it shouldn't be a problem, right? 

 

We, robots

We're learning something about the Canadian electorate through two, unrelated controversies for the Conservatives this month  -- specifically, what it takes to get folks engaged in political debate, and what it takes to put them to sleep. 

First we had last week's unexpected, massive uproar about Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' proposed legislation on online surveillance. At one point, the social-media protest in Canada had become so huge that  it was a top trending topic, here and internationally. 

Now we have new revelations about the fraudulent "robo-calls" placed to voters in as many as 27 ridings across Canada on Election Day last year, telling people that ballot-box locations had changed. (Bravo, Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher, for staying on this story.) This is definitely an active discussion on Twitter these past couple of days, but it has not yet reached the level of fury or interest registered in the Toews' uproar. ** Update** By the end of the work day Friday, apparently, #robocalls was trending at #3 in Canada. That's still far behind the volume or force of the #tellviceverything trend, though. 

I think there are important differences, which I'll get to in a second, but let's stand back from this robo-call business for a second and look at the motivation behind the fraudulent calls -- why someone thought it would work. 

"Voter suppression" is the alleged purpose of the calls. The idea was that if you phoned people, told them the voting location had changed, they'd just decide it was too much of a hassle to go and cast a ballot. Think about that for a second. To pull this off with any success, you had to count on people being so lazy, busy or disengaged that they'd throw away their democratic franchise because of a minor inconvenience.  Cynical? Or just realistic? Voting, the most basic act of our democracy, rests on the idea that people will make a physical effort to participate. Someone (or many someones) calculated that the prospect of even slightly more effort would kill voter motivation. That's kind of insulting, actually. Not as insulting as calling people child pornographers, I guess, but still a rather minimalist view of the Canadian public -- as robots, easily reprogrammed. 

Now look at the Toews' protest. Distinctions are important. 

• First, Bill C-30 is a real, tabled piece of legislation; it's not an alleged intrusion on your rights or privacy -- it's there, in black and white, for all to see. It's coming from the government, not just a political operative (rogue or otherwise.) 
• Second, it's about the Internet, not a telephone line, and the proposed intrusion would be long-term, not just a one-off call on election day. (I wonder, though, as an aside, whether people are just accustomed now to shrugging at telephone calls, and place far more value on the net for true communication.) 
• Third, even Conservatives, mainly of the libertarian stripe, were joining in the protest against C-30. With the robo-calls, mainly there's been a circling of Conservative wagons. (Some hapless Conservative may be cast out of the family for a while, but generally, exiles for egregiousness have been temporary or short-lived.) 
• Fourth, and most importantly, getting riled about the Toews' protest was easy  -- and fun. You didn't need to get off your couch or your chair to register your anger on Twitter; all it took was a press of the "send" button to #tellviceverything. Bonus, you could be hilarious doing so. It was an entertaining protest. 

And that's where we get back to the similarities between online surveillance and robocalls. It's about what's easy and what's difficult in Canadian democratic participation.  Voting, casting a ballot, requires effort -- effort vulnerable to being thwarted. Joining an internet protest is  easy, and fun.

There are lessons here -- but whether they're about making it easier to vote or raising the bar for protests is a whole other discussion. 

Update: In a stroke of excellent timing, StatsCan has released a report today on why people didn't vote in the last election. Click on the link to see the full study, or read the summary, below: 

Voting rates in the May 2011 federal election increased with both age and education, although the impact of education was much stronger among younger voters.

For example, among people aged 25 to 34, the difference in voting between those with at least a bachelor's degree and those with less than a high school education was 42 percentage points. This gap narrowed to 10 percentage points among people aged 55 and over.

After controlling for education and other factors, 25- to 34-year-olds were 15 percentage points less likely to vote than 45- to 54-year-olds, while 65- to 74-year-olds were 19 percentage points more likely to vote than 45- to 54-year-olds.

The presence of children was associated with lower voting rates in all family types. The effect was particularly strong for single parents, as 36% of those with children under age 5 voted, compared with 60% of couples with children the same age.

Overall, immigrant citizens were less likely to vote than people born in Canada, but voting rates generally increased with time in Canada.

Employed people were more likely to vote than the unemployed or those not in the labour force after controls were in place for factors like age and education. Among the employed, those working in the public sector or in high-skill occupations were most likely to vote. Voting rates were lower for those working 40 hours or more per week, and for those in less-skilled occupations.

Home owners had significantly higher voting rates than renters.

 

 

Shocked, shocked

Many people seem to believe that the Vic Toews' controversy of last week was a lesson to the government about using inflamed rhetoric -- that we won't see Conservatives demonizing their opponents again as allies of pornographers, pedophiles and the Taliban. I'm afraid I'm not so sure. 

First, a confession. I barely blinked last week when Toews made his now-infamous remark about child pornographers. Why? Because this is kind of business as usual around Ottawa in recent years. All week, I was constantly reminded of that part in Casablanca when the police chief pronounces himself "shocked, shocked" to find there was gambling going on in Rick's Cafe. Yet to listen to the tut-tutting on Cross-Country Checkup on the weekend -- in which there was virtual unanimity on the beyond-the-pale nature of Toews'  remarks  -- you'd think it was the first time a cabinet  minister made an outrageous slur like this against disssenters on the opposition benches. Unfortunately it's not. And my bet is that it won't be the last one. How sure am I of this? Well, let's look at what the Prime Minister himself said the day after Mr. Toews made the odious comparison. 

With respect to child pornography, our party is very much against it, and I encourage the NDP to join us in taking that stand.

 

Actually, I'd invite folks to go to the openparliament.ca website and do their own searches of words such as "pornographer" or "pedophiles." (I know, I know. That's almost begging for some online surveillance, isn't it?) Note how those words have been casually tossed back and forth across the aisles.

The difference this time, it seemed to me, was that Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson, my co-panelist on CTV's Power Play, wrote up a stern little missive after Toews' remarks last Monday. Yes, that's right: the modern-day Internet pile-on was prompted, at least in large part,  by traditional media. Now, I'm not saying that people didn't get the information elsewhere -- the Canadian Press was also quick off the mark in reporting Toews' slur after he said it. But was Toews straying off tried-and-true methods of political rhetoric these days? No, he was not. He must be baffled why he's getting all the flak for a communications strategy that has obviously enjoyed the seal of approval from PMO for quite some time now. Shocked? Welcome to the club. (And please don't mistake that as any sympathy or support for Mr. Toews' brand of smear. I just think he shouldn't be the only one held responsible.) 

I've been doing a lot of reading/research into political marketing these past few weeks while I'm doing this book. And while I hate to be the one to dim any optimism about teachable moments in politics, I'd like to draw your attention to some remarks made  in November, 2010, in the Commons, a good six months before the election last year that gave the Conservatives their majority and saw this particular Bloc MP lose his seat.  Newly scandalized observers of Canadian politics might want to take note of Mr. St. Cyr's particular objections to how dissent was being handled. (Emphasis is mine.) 

.....we think the government is taking us in exactly the wrong direction for political marketing reasons.

Earlier today, the question of bill titles arose. The Conservative minister made fun of the fact that the opposition members were complaining about the ridiculous titles of the bills that the government introduces and he said it was frankly not a very important issue. If it is not important, then, why does the government insist on giving its bills stupid titles?

This happens not just in the justice area but everywhere. They talk about cracking down on crooked consultants or protecting Canadians against something or other when the bill does not even do that. They talk about ending early release for dangerous criminals when this does not exist. These titles are complete lies. So why does the government do it if it thinks it is unimportant?

The fact is the government does it for political marketing reasons. It does not really believe in the content of its bills itself. It simply inflicts these ridiculous titles on us. Today we have the Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. That is a completely gratuitous statement devoid of any basis in reality. First, talk about protecting Canadians has no place in the bill. It is just an opinion. Some people, including the Conservatives, say they believe it will protect Canadians. The experts, though, tend to think it will not have any preventive or dissuasive effect. So the title is untrue. There are no sentence discounts for multiple murders. As the law now stands, the minimum sentence for first degree murder, for example, is life in prison. There is no discount. What the bill addresses is the cumulative nature of the parole system. The title has nothing to do with the actual bill.

Once again, some members will say that the title itself is not really important. The title does not make the bill, but what that means—and this is what I want to say to the people who are watching today—is that the government is lying right to their faces. Obviously, the people at home are not going to get a copy of the bill and look at the changes it makes to the Criminal Code. They have obligations and work to do. They are very busy with families, children, jobs and homes. I understand that we cannot all study this country's laws. So what will the average person rely on to try to form an opinion? The average person will rely on what he is told the bill does. If he is told the bill protects people against murderers, he will say it is a good bill. Who is opposed to protecting people against murderers? The answer is obvious. But the public is being deceived and fooled by the government. I think that is insulting to the public.

I have the opportunity to talk with people in my riding, as we all do, and sometimes some of them tell me they do not agree with our positions. They have seen the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice on the news, saying that the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of pedophiles. He is very good at that. Someone who hears that calls my office and asks whether the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of pedophiles. Come on. As though any member of this House gets up in the morning and thinks about what he or she could do to help pedophiles. It is completely crazy to even suggest that to the public.

The bill the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice was referring to at the time had to do with the trafficking of minors. The word “trafficking” appeared nowhere in the bill, apart from the title. So the bill's title referred to the trafficking of minors, but the substance of the bill had nothing to do with that. We can see that the government wants to deceive and fool the public.

I tell people to beware of politicians who take them for idiots and think they are incapable of reasoning for themselves.

 

Again, Mr. St. Cyr lost his seat in the last election. I'm sure, watching this from afar, that he's not all that shocked by what he heard last week in the Commons. 

 

 

This year's grassroots protest

Remember the big protests against prorogation?  I do, and I'm wondering if all this anger about the online surveillance legistlation (mostly directed at Public Safety Minister Vic Toews) is just another form of it. And if that's the case, this is unlikely to have any impact on Conservative fortunes, since Prime Minister did win a majority last year. 

 So, serious question: is #TellVicEverything the 2012 version of  the anti-prorogation movement? I decided to ask  on Twitter today: which grassroots revolt would have more impact?

 Here's a sampling of the initial results (and feel free to join the conversation, either on Twitter, or in the comments section here.) 

@0lddutch: I was at the forefront of the anti prorogation cabal. After 2 years the Cons gained a majority. Impact? only in our minds.

 

@michaelcwheeler: prorogue protests showed huge appetite for cooperation against Harper by non-politicos. May be important soon...

@krisjoseph: Anti-prorogue protests had ZERO impact, so topping that isn't hard. #TellVicEverything will be forgotten in a few months.

@alyjohnsonb: As childish as the method may be, I think "fun" is the key and why its so catchy. It just might have more impact as result.

@MuskokaMoneybag: Do we need an election to find out?

@davidshipley: I think so. It spans political stripes - civil liberties types plus conservative-I-don't-want-big-govt-watching-me types.

@TelegramJames: How does one measure "impact" in this sort of thing?

@GlynnP75: I think so, 'net as commons works better in a vast cold country than small grps in many spots. Clearly I'm not in TO though

@ChristophBryon: at the very least, #tellviceverything I am sure woke the smug »HarperGov up to the fact that they have to listen to us

@Beari8it: IMO if Bill C30 passes there will be a technology war #cdnpoli #seriously @criacow: Harper got a majority after anti-prorogation protests. I can't see how #tellviceverything could have *less* of an effect...

Sol Chrom: Not sure about the twitter mockery, but the Anonymous video's got him whining to the Mounties. That's an impact. Jamie Callingham: looks that way, people more bothered by being spied on then by disrespect of democracy.

@TroutMcGee: Good question. Seemingly getting as much if not more traction. Toews comment was very spitful and insulting to Cdn's @Craig_F: Naw nothing we say will matter the dont have time to listen they gotta get all their buddies payed off before we boot them

 

Update: Right after I posted this, renowned pollster Darrell Bricker of Ipsos weighed in with a comment that stirred up some new reactions. Here's how that went: 

 

 

Now we are six

Is there something unlucky about six in Canadian politics? The federal Conservative government marked its sixth-year anniversary in the past few weeks... the sixth anniversary of its election victory in January and six years since its swearing-in on Feb. 6, 2006. 

 A couple of years ago, I had dinner with a seasoned political type, no friend of the Harper government, who said he thought it would take six years in power for the Conservatives to start wearing out their welcome. I said something like "you know this means they'll get another mandate." This wasn't his preference. He shrugged and agreed. 

But that number six has been much in my mind as we move past the anniversaries of late. Also, I've been deep in the history pages as I'm doing this book thing (hence the infrequent blogging... sorry.) 

The six-year mark wasn't kind to Brian Mulroney. Six years after he gained power in 1984, his Meech Lake constitutional accord came crashing down, he introduced the GST, the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party became full-fledged challenges, and the seeds of Mulroney''s defeat were sown by 1990. Mulroney's Conservatives were devastated in the 1993 election and never really recovered -- needing to merge with the Canadian Alliance to come back to power. 

Six years after Chretien won his majority in late 1993, things were souring in 1999-2000 too. His real opposition, within his own caucus, had grown restive waiting for Paul Martin's succession and Chretien was starting to be known as the "friendly dictator." The Liberals went on a slow vote decline starting in 2000, from which it's still not clear they'll recover. 

It strikes me that when governments go bad, whether at six years or another point, it's when they start to confuse "us" and "them." Mulroney paid too much attention to his "us" -- his caucus and his damn-the-public-opinion plans, and didn't realize the size of the "them" against him. Chretien thought all Liberals were "us" and realized that many had started to identify themselves as "them," against him.

The current Conservative government, under Harper, has always played that us-versus-them calculation to its advantage. It divided the world into friends and enemies and though it seemed a bit small of them (they won, after all) it worked. But I'm not sure it's got the calculation right these days. Maybe it's unlucky 6.

 Harper went to Davos, to talk about what he was going to do about the pensions of "them," and has been in a scramble since to define who those people are. I'm pretty sure those imminent pensioners thought they were on the Harper "us" team. His government keeps defining its enemies -- the "them" -- as child pornographers, Hitler sympathizers, foreign radicals,  etc., in a manner that seems designed to make sure that the Harper government's "us" looks rather miniature. In fact, it's starting to look like a very tiny,  puzzlingly aggrieved  group. (What are they mad at, anyway?) Are there any Canadians out there with whom this government would like to make a new acquaintance, perhaps be new friends? If not, are the Conservatives absolutely sure that their old friends -- the "us" -- are still with them? Certainly there are signs that may not be the case. 

Oh... That poem I'm referring to in the headline and illustration here? It's from A.A. Milne, in a collection of children's poems, circa 1927, and I'll leave it to you to find the political parallels. All I'll say is that kids and governments don't stay six forever. 

When I was one I had just begun
When I was two I was nearly new

When I was three I was hardly me
When I was four I was not much more

When I was five I was just alive
But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever;

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Read-the-fine-print government

As CBC is reporting, some homeowners are "stunned" by the abrupt cancellation to the energy retrofit program. The larger surprise, however, may be learning that Canada now has first-come, first-served governance. It's like a concert -- without the music or the crowds or the glowsticks.  

Here was Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver in the Commons yesterday, explaining why the program was shut down early. 

Mr. Speaker, the eco-energy retrofit program reached its goal of 250,000 registered homeowners. Participating homeowners will see significant savings on their energy bills. The program also provides jobs right across this country. With this program fully subscribed, we expect to approach our budget limit of $400 million. 

I'm not sure I can think of another government program that works this way. Are there parents in Canada who can't get the $100 cheques because the program is "fully subscribed?" Nor do I think the government advertised this program as first-come, first-served when it extended the deadline.

 This all  feels vaguely offside. Revenue Canada, after all, allows taxpayers 10 years to amend their returns, in case there are credits or writeoffs  that tax-filers  may have missed. 

In the private sector, which this government often points out as an example, I think this retroactive date-changing would  provoke some blowback from customers.

 Even  first-come, first-served has its limits too.   We've all seen the fine print on those advertising flyers --  merchants have to give notice to customers if "supplies are limited" on sales items, don't they?   And we've all stood in lines in  drugstores or department stores, seeing people holding  those flyers, arguing for the lower price -- and usually getting it, either through rain checks or equivalent merchandise.

  That's because these stores worry about customer loyalty and goodwill -- apparently not an issue for government. 

 Don't get me wrong. It's perfectly normal for governments to limit the scope of benefits, either through qualifying criteria or deadlines.  I think this is an unusual, and strange way of limiting spending, though, and I'd be curious to know if there are other examples. If it works (and why wouldn't it? This government has a majority), I wonder if we'll see future examples -- i.e, sorry, we have enough people signed up for the subsidy on sports equipment and music lessons.

When the budget comes, just like with those advertising flyers, we'd be advised  to read the fine print.