Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waves to the crowd after taking part in a fireside chat with Michael Scheldrick, co-founder and Chief Policy, Impact and Government Affairs Officer at Global Citizen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Nov. 17.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Justin Trudeau just sat down for an armchair conversation with you about immigration. He needs you to know he made a mistake.
That’s important because the Liberals’ previous immigration policy was incredibly unpopular. The Prime Minister needs voters to know that he has undone it.
So in a YouTube video released Sunday, he plunked himself down in an armchair and spoke straight into the camera. He explained why his government let the number of immigrants – mainly temporary residents – balloon. He blamed “bad actors” for a lot of it – but then talked about “where we made some mistakes and why we’re taking this big turn.”
It’s a new take for Mr. Trudeau. Or take two, to be precise. He had held a press conference in October to announce a 180-degree turn on immigration policy. But he couldn’t quite bring himself then to really admit mistakes. And the U-turn story got lost amid a revolt of some of his own MPs and the U.S. election campaign.
Now the Prime Minister is talking about his mistake by using a favourite communications medium of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre – a video that by Monday afternoon had garnered 500,000 views.
The polls make it clear Canadians are dissatisfied with both Mr. Trudeau and the direction of the country. So it could not be more obvious that Mr. Trudeau can’t keep doing everything the same way. A well-executed about-face can be an effective political manoeuvre.
Just imagine if Mr. Trudeau’s government had done an effective job of defusing the angst about the carbon tax a year ago. Instead, the Liberals announced a piecemeal exemption on heating oil targeted primarily at Atlantic Canada that was viewed more as an attempt to save Liberal MPs there than listening to Canadians.
This time, the Liberals are playing up the reversal. His opponents jumped on it. Mr. Poilievre called Mr. Trudeau a “pyromaniac firefighter,” arguing he is promising to fix the problem he made.
But Mr. Poilievre is effectively giving Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals free advertising, underlining the message that they are changing course to put a pause on population growth.
The real issue for the Liberals is the question they face about almost everything: Is it too late?
It’s always better to admit a mistake quickly. Now, at a time when an election is nearing, it is more likely to be viewed as a deathbed conversion. Still, it’s never a bad time for a politician to reverse course on a policy that voters really hate. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has admitted mistakes several times, and it has worked.
Mr. Trudeau chose to bring the admission to the public in a YouTube video – at nearly seven minutes, longer than the usual political message.
It’s a medium that allowed Mr. Trudeau to explain and engage “as if you were just having a conversation in a coffee shop or in the street,” said Dan Arnold, the former director of research and advertising in the Prime Minister’s Office, and now chief strategy officer at Pollara Strategic Insights.
Mr. Trudeau spent a portion of the video shifting blame onto business lobbies screaming for foreign workers to reduce labour shortages – with a clip of Mr. Ford doing the same – and “bad actors” and colleges charging rich fees to booming numbers of foreign students. All that’s true, but it was the federal government’s job to control the numbers, and they didn’t. But Mr. Trudeau now concedes that.
Mr. Arnold said he wouldn’t advise the Prime Minister to make a speech about 10 mistakes. But this is a specific case.
“There’s a place for a politician to admit they haven’t gotten things right,” he said. “Because then it makes the solution feel like real change.”
Mr. Arnold noted that’s not the kind of thing the Liberals will put into their television ad campaigns. This is an attempt to shield against damage.
But the Liberals want voters to hear about it. The video includes news clips emphasizing what a big course change the government has just made on immigration – playing it up, not down. Mr. Trudeau needs Canadians to know about it, even if it means admitting a mistake.