“Is anybody here prepared to explain why a Conservative government would adopt socialist measures?” Deputy Minister of Miscellaneous Government Activity Roger Overbudget roared. The members of the Subcommittee for New Implementation of Trends stopped chatting at once, hoping to mask their inability to answer the question with intense attention to each other.
Overbudget fingered his recently won POLlie (for Meritorious Service to Pedantry at the Lowest Levels – one of the numerous awards that were cut from the televised ceremonies) and allowed the silence to grow to terminal proportions. The Subcommittee had been alarmingly unproductive in the last quarter, holding only 17 meetings and submitting a mere eight discussion papers to the Minister, and Overbudget was determined to find out why.
Jack Eigerbeav, a relative newcomer to the Subcommittee, cleared his throat. “To gain votes?” he cautiously suggested, smiling thinly to hide his mortal terror.
“Of course they expect to gain votes.” Overbudget impatiently dismissed Eigerbeav’s career. “The only reason politicians ever decide to act is in order to get votes!”
“Well, there’s always real estate,” Eigerbeav muttered to himself.
Overbudget ignored him. “The question behind the question, which anybody with serious intentions of moving up in the Service would have recognized at once, was, how do they expect to get votes?”
“What exactly are we talking about?” Senior Adviser Agatha Logger asked, catching Overbudget with a gaze which froze his blood.
“The decision to commit additional funds to Canada’s daycare system.” He told her, trying not to flinch.
“Oh.” Blasé, Logger stated, “That would be a classic example of the technique presently referred to in the literature as ‘appropriating the issue.’ Wouldn’t it, Roger?”
Overbudget hated when she called him Roger. Grimacing, he said, “That’s right, Ms. Logger. Would you care to explain -“
“No.” Logger rose. “I have more important things to do.”
Overbudget watched her walk out of the room. The other members of the Subcommittee studiously doodled on the official notepads on the desk in front of them (supplied for just such a purpose), avoiding anything which might be misconstrued as meaningful eye contact. Such behaviour would, ordinarily, prompt Overbudget to angrily annotate a person’s file, with the potential of severe refusal of a request for a more than lukewarm recommendation should the person decide to seek employment in the public sector; unfortunately, Logger was a brick wall in every sense of the metaphor, and even the Deputy Minister was intimidated by her.
“Okay,” he brusquely said, “an opposition party can make points with the public by pushing an issue not on the government’s agenda. But, if the government acts before the public falls in line with the opposition, it can cut that plank right out of their platform.
“So, the Liberals and New Democrats had started pushing the idea of better access to daycare. By acting on its own to improve daycare, the Conservative government has taken the steam out of the opposition in this area. This is, indeed, an example of appropriating the issue.
“Do you have a problem with what I’m saying, Arnold?”
Arnold Barron, one of the Ministry’s major liaison personnel with the Ministry of Communications, had actually been thinking about lunch when Overbudget called upon him. However, it was his duty, and equally his pleasure, to ask the embarrassing questions, preparing himself to answer them in public in the worst case scenario that a journalist was actually awake enough to call upon him to do so.
“Daycare, hunh?” he said, consulting his notes. “Actually, I was…umm, wondering, if the government intended to make daycare more accessible, why did it give so much money to individuals? Doesn’t it make more sense to give the money directly to the daycare centres?”
“The government wanted people to choose their own form of daycare, whether it be for-profit or non-profit, for example.”
“Yeah,” Barron commented, “an admirable free enterprise sentiment. But, if there is a chronic shortage of spaces and skilled workers in the daycare system, giving people more money to spend won’t make new facilities available. It could just drive up the price of existing openings, especially in for-profit centres.”
“Perhaps,” Overbudget agreed. “But, that’s the beauty of appropriating the issue. Instead of allowing the opposition to use its ideology to create the framework by which the problem is to be solved, you can use your own. Then, when you supply your own solutions, opposition arguments become weaker.”
Barron resisted the urge to spit. “Right. The money is going to be distributed through tax credits. That means that you have to put up the money and get it back in April. But, suppose you’re a single mother who can barely afford to make ends meet as it is. Where are you supposed to get the money? Are we creating a situation where its more economically feasible for a single mother to go on Welfare?”
Overbudget shrugged. “The important thing is to be seen to act. What the government actually does is strcitly secondary.”
“Then, there’s the question of the allowance for parents who can’t get a receipt,” Barron continued. “Parents with children under six can claim tax deductions whether they use daycare or not! Wouldn’t a direct subsidy to daycare centres ensure that the money actually went to daycare centres?”
Overbudget shook his head sagely. “You continue to misinterpret the government’s intention,” he insisted. “Appropriating the issue is a matter of good government behaviour, not necessarily good public policy.”
“I have to go to lunch,” Barron stated, shortly, and walked out.
“Well,” Overbudget, mildly annoyed at this second defection, commented, “there’s no need to leave in a SNIT.”