When you read these two pieces by Don Butler and (The Eco-Libertarian) David Reevely, you will understand why the Libs are having difficulty selling their Green Shift to Canadians: its too complex.
You will also understand why this headline
Tories should present alternative to Green Shift
...expresses a forlorn hope. The Tories intend to keep the final regs of their Turning The Corner plan under wraps until after October 14th: it's too complex too.
I don't think the Green Shift is too complicated. Media and Dion and other Liberals have explained it quite well.
ReplyDeleteWhat's happened is that Harper et al have had all this time to confuse the message. And at one point, the media was helping them.
My personal theory is that the Green Shift is such a good idea, a win for everyone, that Harper is jealous he didn't have anything new and hopeful to introduce to us. That's why he's frantically promising tax cuts all over the place. And all that spending right before the election.
I also believe that if the Liberals don't win, Harper will take the Green Shift as his own and introduce it anyway. That way, he will claim credit, it will be recorded in history as his idea, and that's that.
Carrie, conceptually I don't think its a hard idea. But the Libs put the whole plan up front and it has alot of interlocking pieces that your typical riding level candidate doesn't really know enough about to explain.
ReplyDeleteThe Tory plan is all regulatory, so it has a bazillion interlocking parts too. That's why they are hiding it.
I think they are hiding it because they do not intend to implement it.
ReplyDeleteAfter the election they will say the economy is too unstable to start imposing new regulations, and that will be that.
So what you're saying BCL is that Conservatives think Canadians are too stupid to figure his plan out.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Elizabeth May was right when she said that some politicians think Canadians are stupid. Was she referring to Harper? (One wonders aloud).
Both May and Dion are counting on the intelligence of Canadians to see through the murky waters and grasp the essence of good policy while Harper and Layton are hiding their policies from honest debate.
The problem with the Green Shift Message, as I see it, is that fact that 1) the Medium has become the message. At this point in time Dion has become the medium. The Stephane Dion image is holding back what would be, by all accounts, a very smart and intelligent candidate and initiative. 2) The general public does not understand what the Green shift consists of. The average person does not go out of their way to inform themselves. Thus are more susceptible to the dribble fed to a viewer in the form of a commercial.
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