In Maclean’s, Stephen Gordon give props to the spinmeisters in the employ of the federal government:
Full credit to the government’s communications strategists: they managed to produce budget-day headlines that said the exact opposite of what was in the budget.
The first thing I read on the morning of budget day was the National Post story about cutting tariffs on hockey gear. There was also a matching A1 story in the Globe and Mail and I walked to the budget lockup in a cheerful mood. Even though the numbers involved were tiny, I couldn’t help but feel encouraged about how the measure was being marketed. Almost without exception, trade liberalisation is presented as a concession to the demands of foreign exporters, but the real gains from trade are those obtained from being able to purchase cheaper imports. These gains can be obtained by reducing tariffs unilaterally – the most famous example is the repeal of the the UK Corn Laws in 1849. There was no drawn-out process of negotiations with corn (wheat) exporters in other countries: the UK government simply eliminated tariffs so that the population could have cheaper food. The morning headlines led me to believe that our government was going to implement a unilateral tariff reduction for the simplest and best reason: because it increased consumers’ purchasing power.
I was wrong, of course. Yes, there were those 37 tariff reductions, but there was also the measure to ‘modernize’ Canada’s General Preferential Tariff (GPT) regime by ‘graduating’ 72 countries from the GPT; imports from these countries will now face higher tariffs. Mike Moffatt estimates that those 37 tariff reductions will be accompanied by 1290 tariff increases. [. . .]
So instead of a unilateral reduction in tariffs, the government is planning a unilateral increase. This is not how a pro-trade government behaves.
What are politics of #bdgt13 tariffs? Possibilities: CPC thinks a) no one would notice b) big gains from Orchardites c) only ‘experts’ care.
— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan) March 25, 2013
