The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - How Can Political Messages Be More Effective?

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

Are Ontario politicians over-coached? Then, after several disruptions can the Ontario film and TV industry bounce back? Why are so many young voters gravitating to conservative politics, and the pros and cons of drug decriminalization.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or when you yourself were in politics as an MPP and doing a press conference, for example, what's the key piece of information that you either send people out or got sent out that you think is helpful to them as they negotiate those rough waters of a news conference? So probably four fast things off the top. It's not about the surly reporter. It's about the audience and keep them in mind. It is all about the space and time you have to fill and about the headline these days

because we're all scrolling for millions of them. So get to that headline right away. And if you are asked an unwanted question, then address it briefly and get back to the job at hand, which is filling that space and time with what you came to tell people. Will, how does that sound to you? I mean, it's relevant, right? It's bang on. I think, you know, what we're talking about here is a policy announcement. And I think at that point, it depends on what the policy is, right? If it's heavily controversial, you're sending your

minister out with different advice. But on a regular funding announcement like this that, you know, led to your article on this space, it's really about reminding them to communicate effectively, to communicate directly, to be human. You know, I work for a politician that was very excitable. So one of my last pieces of advice for him was always calm down. Think of you're talking to your grandmother. Get focused on that image in your head so you can communicate to that grandmother on the other side of the television camera. Who is the politician? John Baird. John Baird.

Very excitable. I think I could say that. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Erin, what would you add to that so far? Yeah, one of the last things I tell politicians right before a news conference is, what's our tone today? What's the tone we're going out with? Are we excited? Are we calm? Are we worried? Are we scared?

How do people feel? And can you reflect back their feelings towards them? If they know the topic at hand, if they know how to answer the questions, then that should be on their mind going out. What's my tone? When you are at a press conference at Queen's Park and you ask a question, or anybody does for that matter, and the minister is obviously skating, obfuscating, trying really hard to, what Jennifer suggested, be responsive and then pivot to something else, what are you thinking at that moment? Can I shake them off it or am I not going to be able to? And with some ministers, you know, you have no hope. Like, I'll give an example,

name names if that's okay. The finance minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy, he's very hard to shake. So when he does the same thing that Minister Dunlop did and take your question and answer something else, you're not going to get him off it. But he also doesn't look scared or uncertain. He does it with authority and you just sort of give up and move on. Well, OK, you've just referenced Minister Dunlop and that's what I presume you were referring to, Will, in your first answer. So, I mean, that's a bit of the inspiration for this program here is that several weeks ago, the colleges and universities minister, Jill Dunlop, who let me say for the record, is a lovely person, is a good person, but who went into the

media studio that day and did not have a great day. Here was the first question that she was asked and her response. Sheldon, please. Yes or no, do you disagree with the federal government's decision to cap international students? Well, thank you very much for the question. And absolutely, the decision was made by the federal government was a unilateral decision with absolutely no consultation with the provinces or the sector that's not an answer now reporters don't i have to say i don't think we usually do that where we actually say to the minister in question that's not an answer that's a little cheeky. But OK, Jennifer, you're advising the minister in that case, let's say. And she gives what is quite obviously a completely unresponsive answer to

the question. What's your advice at that point? Advice to the minister for having given that answer? Exactly. A little hard to advise them when they're alive in the situation, right? So they're on their own. Once they're right? So they're on their own. Once they're up there, they're on their own. But the reason why they do it is because so often it works. And that was the point that was just made is that sometimes they give up if you just doggedly continue to stick to that message. is really if you're bringing your communications team in early in the policy development, then you're going to actually troubleshoot a lot of these policy issues or funding announcement issues by having your team in place and saying, you know what, you might want to modify something

and you'll end up with a better policy and a better rollout. But sometimes you do have to really try to address the question, albeit briefly, because often it's an opposition agenda question maybe that's being put to you and you don't want to engage in the opposition agenda for your few seconds of fame there. So just address it. Have a way to address that question meaningfully and move on quickly back to what you want to say. Yeah. Well, let me follow up with you on that. I mean, it was pretty obvious that she was coached, that if you are asked A, B, and C, make sure you don't answer A, B, and C,

just pivot to X, Y, and Z. Now, is that useful advice to give a minister? So look, I'll answer that two ways. One, I think anytime you're doing any type of public communications, you need to sound like a human. You need to be relatable. You need to be approachable.

And it helps if you have some empathy. You know, I think that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is, though, frankly, she probably has been coached. The minister has been coached. I mean, I do this type of coaching. And it's also a product of the way in which this press conference will be covered.

Knowing full well that whatever she says is going to be clipped for the evening news at about 10 seconds. So if she just keeps saying the same thing over and over again, she knows what's going to be on the clip that evening. There's very few long-form public policy shows like The Agenda where you can actually have that fulsome discussion about all of the back and forth. That doesn't make it right, but I can see how you get to that point in the minister's, to give the minister a little bit of defence here. I want to start by having our director, Sheldon Osmond, bring up some numbers here that really tell a very big story.

This is the economic impact of film and television in the province of Ontario. And if we go back to 2021, right in the thick of COVID, we were still doing almost $3 billion of business here in the province. The following year, it actually went up a bit to $3.2 billion. But then came the strike, 2023, and business really fell, $1.8 billion annually. That is a big drop off. And Marguerite, perhaps we could have you start by telling us those are the numbers. But what does it look like on the ground when you see that kind of drop? Those numbers are really real. It definitely what we're seeing is that coming out of the strike, less production is being commissioned. So there's definitely a downturn. We're feeling that in terms of fewer productions in Toronto.

that in terms of fewer productions in Toronto. Scouting, which has been robust at the beginning of the year, is beginning to plateau a little bit. We are expecting a reasonably strong 2024, but it's definitely taking a while to get started. But we know that the pipeline is strong. We know it will come back. It's just taking time and that's really challenging given that we've been through COVID and of course the strikes. We'll of course talk about that pipeline during our discussion here. Carla, what was the strike like for you and your colleagues? Painful. It was really painful. How so?

Not a lot of us were working and the few of us that were weren't, uh, we were working below our regular pay grade. Uh, we were accepting any job that we could get. Meaning what? Um, so if I was a production coordinator, uh, if somebody offered me an assistant production coordinator, uh, position, I would take it. Because that was the only game in town. Even though under normal circumstances, that's not what you would aspire to. That's not normally what I would do. I've done it, but I haven't done it in a while. Gotcha. Devin, give us a sense of what the strike was like in Northern Ontario and the impact it had

there. Sure. By the hard numbers, we were down about 60%. We had 40 productions going down to 16. It was an interesting time because we have a lot more canadian independent production happening in northern ontario so we were able to avoid some of the um but let's say american shows that weren't coming anymore we didn't have them anyways uh so there was a little bit of a um a success in that but coming out of it it wasn't uh a fast return the way we had with COVID. It was almost like projects were stockpiled after COVID and we could jump into a bunch of new productions. But more recently, it's been after the strike, a lot of feels like kicking tires

or browsing on projects and not really a lot of things landing the way that they were. So we're feeling it. There's hopefulness, as Marguerite alluded to, where we think a lot more projects are going to be looking for the rest of the year, but they haven't actually formally committed yet to being here. So that's where we have some concerns. Rod, I wonder with U.S. productions on pause because of the strike, whether the domestic industry here in Canada filled the bill at all. I think the domestic side filled the bill in the sense of the talent is here. The writers, directors, producers, creators, we have a strong system here. I think where it gets challenging is there's no more money in Canada just because the U.S. studios are on pause. And I think,

to Marguerite's point, it raises a little bit more of an issue in the sense of there is a strike and there will be a bounce back. But I think with other macro forces at play, there may not be a bounce back that takes the same shape as we're coming out of peak TV. Everyone with a Twitter account that was making a joke could get a development deal a few years ago. I think the commissioning and the licensing has started to change. I think the online streamers and the platforms that drove Peak TV had a model of growth, where as long as they kept growing their subscriber base, it's Wall Street that would value them in a very different highway. Now they're being scrutinized to say, have you made profit? So with profit comes ways to cut costs, like maybe changing the production schedule

and shortening it, or as we are well-versed, offshoring jobs. I think in Variety in March, they said that of the billions that Netflix is going to spend in the coming years, more than half is outside of North America. So I think change is coming. I think there will be a bounce back,

but it may not look the same as the past. Carla, did you expect that after the strike ended that things would bounce back very quickly? Yeah, we expected the same bounce back that we had after COVID, after they lifted the restrictions. And there was a stock, as Marguerite was saying, there was a stockpile of productions. And did that happen? It has not happened yet. It has not happened. There's been a lot of rumors, but I mean, it's just talk at this point. Marguerite, why would things not have bounced back as quickly? Well, I think Rob, Rob rather, really gave some good reasons. I think there was peak TV.

There was a lot of spending going on on television. It was rising and rising. It was rising in a way that was pretty difficult to sustain. I think many people expected a plateau, potentially an eventual contraction. Add to that inflationary pressures and add to that the fact that everybody, every business in some shape or form was affected by the strikes. And you have a bit of a perfect storm that is causing the studios and streamers to really look at the bottom line. David, I want to go to you first, because you've got some numbers out that are truly

intriguing here. Young Canadians supported Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party four years ago to the tune of 34%. And that number today is not 34%, it's 25%. And that's a pretty big drop. I gather you think this is one of the biggest stories in Canadian politics today, and I wonder if you can tell us why. Well, I think it is, Stephen. I think it's because if you had come to me a year, or if I had come to you a year ago and said, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party is more popular among Canadians over the age of 60 than they are among Canadians under 30,

you would have said to me, David, go to another poll. Go back in the field. That data is no good. And what we're seeing consistently is the opposite, is that, right? And I think that, to me, is the biggest story. Because for so long, and I had to go back, I was looking even in data back into the early 2000s. Like the last time a conservative party at election around an election was able to pull close to 40 percent among younger voters can find it. I get to almost probably go back to Mulroney in 84 when when anything like that happened. Mulroney in 84 when anything like that happened. And so something's happening that is attracting young people to the Conservatives, but I also think largely repelling them away from the Liberals. And that, to me, is the biggest story because Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government won their majority in 2015 because we saw this youthquake of millennials coming out and voting

and voting Liberal. And I think they saved them in the last two federal elections when the rest of the country was ready to throw Mr. Trudeau out. Well, this program is all about theories as to why this is happening. So, Josie, why don't you come on in here and let's not have everybody do four or five reasons. Let's have everybody do one reason why you think this, you want to call it a youth quake? Maybe we're there yet. Maybe not. I don't know. Let's see why this movement of youth anyway to supporting conservatives is happening what do you think well it's hard to narrow it down to just one condition i think when you look at the series of factors that have impacted the lives of youth and really when you're looking at that kind of 20 to 35 demographic this is where their biggest changes are happening in terms of career and where they're going to work and when you factor in the

covid 19 pandemic and how much disruption that caused i think it's the perfect storm for some happening in terms of career and where they're going to work. And when you factor in the COVID-19 pandemic and how much disruption that caused, I think it's the perfect storm for some of these economic conditions we're seeing. And the youth need to have hope. They need to know that, you know, they're going to have a stable job opportunity and they're going to be able to buy a house one day. And that's just not what's happening. And I think that really, really creates some of these economic anxieties that we're seeing today. Tina, what are you seeing? Well, I think I agree with that. There's a great deal of anger and anxiety among the young people today. They can't afford to rent. They can't afford to buy a house. They're having a very hard time with their grocery bills because things cost more. And, you know,

there's a big mismatch of supply and demand in our economy. Coupled with that, they're also finding that there's no clear vision that they once hoped for with Mr. Trudeau. And when you listen to Mr. Poliev and what he's saying on social media, he comes across as somebody who is very direct, very clear, and a guy with a lot of common sense. And because they're so angry and just looking for some signs of change, they're really finding him attractive and listening to all these YouTube clips and what he's saying on social media. We'll pick up on social media again later.

People your age, what's their take on what's happening out there in terms of the economy? Well, obviously, you know, we're in an economic challenge right now. Everything is too expensive. Life is too, like, no one my age can afford anything. And so I think the biggest challenge right now for us is that we're all new grads. We're all trying to move out of home, get their own place to live. And we feel like we're back at square one. We're back at living at home, having no money to pay for groceries. And I think the biggest reason why youth are going

towards conservatives are because the conservatives are giving them real life examples. They're giving them real life things to work on. Polyev is doing acts of tax rallies where he's bringing out so many youth and engaging them. And so they want to see that real life example of change is going to happen. And so I think that's the biggest reason why a lot of us are going towards the right is because we're seeing things actually happen instead of just hearing about it. Sam, what's your take? Yeah, I mean, what matters here, I think, is we need to determine what belongs in sort of a short-term category versus a long-term category because I think it's not unusual historically for conservatives to win these large majorities, right, as in 84,

62 or so, where there's a sort of growing anti-liberal sentiment, a malaise in the country, a desire for change. And to that extent, I think we can understand a lot of the youth support for the conservatives as this anti-liberal sentiment in the sense that alongside the rest of Canadians, they're sort of desiring a change in Ottawa. And whether or not that is supportive enough for the Conservatives in and of itself to stay there, you know, in the next kind of coming electoral cycles is unclear. Because we also have to think about the long term changes here, which is to say that while I think young people are kind of feeling the crunch of these immediate economic stresses like inflation or housing, this is also very long term.

Something that has already been felt for a decade that will be felt for, that has already been felt for a decade and will be felt for decades to come, this lack of economic security. Yeah. Somebody mentioned social media a second ago, and I want to follow up with Josie on that right now, because Mr. Polyev certainly is getting kudos for the way he uses social media to get his views out there. How has the whole rise of social media changed the way politicians interact with the public in between campaigns? Well, I think what's really important

for an opposition leader like Pierre Palliev is that he has a lot of freedom to test messages. And I think we're seeing this kind of roll out. He's using long form videos to tell a story to Canadians that really resonates. And he's using visual descriptors to really back up the emotional sentiment that I think a lot of, you know, Canadians are feeling. A perfect example is when he was talking about encampments in Vancouver and really trying to speak to the emotions and the really strong feelings that some British Columbians have about the situation that is facing them.

What's the intention of drug decriminalization to begin with? Drug decriminalization is a policy change that recognizes that substance use is a health issue and a public health issue, not a criminal one. It looks at the data over a century that indicates that incarceration does not really decrease substance use. It doesn't act as a deterrent. It doesn't make drugs less available. But what it does do is cause health and social harms, increases cycles of homelessness, over-incarceration of Indigenous people, Black people and racialized people, and it doesn't really get us to the solutions that we need. So decriminalization is intended to remove some of that stigma and legal sanction to make it easier for people to access services

and to be less likely to face short-term incarceration, which can cause harm and risk of overdose and can also lead to other social outcomes like losing your job and losing your housing. Okay. Derek, any issue with any of that in terms of the goal? Not really, no. You're on the same page there. So far, I think. I mean, all I would say is that we effectively, even though we don't on the books have decriminalization in Toronto. It hasn't been formally acknowledged by the federal government. I live across the street from a supervised injection site here in the city that has been in the news a fair bit over the last year because a woman was shot out front by some drug dealers that came to the area because of the site and, you know, have spent probably 40 to 50 hours in

meetings with Toronto Police Service, high-ranking people, Toronto Public Health. And, you know, one thing that became very clear is that here in Toronto, we have de facto criminalization in the sense that the police, you know, our attorney general will not prosecute cases for small possession. The police do not, you know, try to do much about open use. They can move people along a little bit. We have they have some control. But but I just thought it was important to point out at the outset that we do, you know, we don't formally have decriminalization. But I would say we have a we have a working form of it here. But would you agree that part of the idea behind it is to

treat it as a public health problem and a health problem to decriminalize it as that kind of issue and get people healthier at the end of the day? I agree. I agree with DJ in that I see this crisis as a health care crisis, not a crisis that the police are going to get us out of. OK. DJ, why did the BC, I mean, this got a lot of attention when it happened not too long ago. The BC government asked for changes in its drug decriminalization plan. Why did they do that? They were responding to public concerns and increased focus on seeing people in public. So there's been a lot of conversation about whether there has been an increase in public substance use. I'll note that the British Columbia Center for Disease Control has released a data website just this week and that there's actually no data to indicate whether there's

been an increase or a decrease in public drug consumption. I got that. Actually, DJ, let me jump in there because we got those numbers here and we should share them as long as you brought it up. Sheldon, I am at the bottom of page one, top of page two. So let's bring this graphic up. And for those listening on podcast, I'll read what the. Coroner Service reports. In the year 2022, there were nearly 2,400 drug deaths occurring. That's 44.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Let's go to the next year, 2023. There were more than 2,500 drug deaths occurring. That's 46.2 deaths per 100,000 people.

That's a 6.2% increase. But then so far this year, we're going January to March of this year, 572 drug deaths have occurred, and that's 40.3 deaths per 100,000 people. So that's a big drop. So, okay, pick up the story, DJ, because the numbers go up, the numbers go down. What do you make of it? In terms of the numbers going up and down, there's a number of factors we have to consider. First of all, decriminalization is meant to help people access health services.

That means that those health services have to be there, and we know that we're still lacking in terms of access to even supervised consumption, methadone, other forms of treatment, including abstinence-based treatment and prescribed alternatives. The numbers, however, will not significantly decrease so long as the drug supply itself remains highly variable. Unlike alcohol or tobacco or all of the food that we eat, it's impossible to know what is in everything within the drug supply or to know how strong it is.

So when we see that variability in the drug supply, we know that that means there's an increased danger for people using it because they may not be able to take the same precautions as I would if I was drinking a glass of wine. That is certainly very good news and could be an indication that people are more able to access those health services and are more visible and able to access emergency health care when they need it. However, we do have to take into consideration that the supply will change over time, as it has been for many years. The Agenda with Steve Paikin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you. Thank you for supporting TVO's journalism.