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politics insider

Pollster Nik Nanos.The Globe and Mail

Nik Nanos is The Globe and Mail's pollster and chairman of Nanos Research.

Perhaps one lesson learned through Tom Mulcair's leadership review and the rebuke by his own party is that there are two types of promises: the political promise and the brand promise.

A political promise is a specific initiative advanced by a leader: cancelling the GST or running a deficit. A brand promise, however, has to do with violating what people expect from your party. Break a political promise, you can survive. Violate a brand promise and you're in trouble.

Politicians have broken or delayed major political promises. Former prime minister Jean Chretien, as leader of the Liberals in opposition in the early 1990s, promised to replace the unpopular GST (forerunner to the HST), won a resounding victory, did not replace it and went on to win elections and comfortably govern for a decade. The improving state of Canada's fiscal house under the Chretien Liberals was an antidote to the potential downside of not delivering on the promise to replace the GST.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper, as opposition leader, made promises in areas such as democratic reform and renewal of the Senate, key touchstones for the Reform/Canadian Alliance supporters prior to the merger with the Progressive Conservatives but managed to continue to count on the support of core Conservatives throughout his mandate and, one could argue, even in defeat, with his 32 per cent showing in the last federal election.

The reason is that when one breaks a political promise, there is usually some context for not delivering on a political promise or delaying action. The government may not be able to afford to deliver on a political promise, or there may be other priorities that push a promise to the back burner of government priorities.

Violating a brand promise, however, has much more dire consequences. The brand promise of a party has to do with the identity or policy behaviour that people expect from a particular party.

For the Conservatives, Canadians expect a tough-on-crime small government agenda. They expect the Liberals to be progressive and fiscally flexible – not restricted to balancing the books all the time but willing to run deficits to advance a progressive agenda. Canadians expect the federal New Democrats to be the conscience of the country, fighting against big business, advocating for working Canadians and spending as necessary to advance the NDP agenda.

Although some may point a finger at Mr. Mulcair's performance, many Canadians, according to the Nanos nightly tracking for The Globe and Mail and CTV News, started drifting away from the New Democrats with the release of their platform – and the focus on the keystone promise of advancing a national child-care program while balancing the books.

For many, the national child-care program was not a surprise from the NDP – even though it was considered a big-ticket promise. The issue was the promise to run a balanced budget. One could expect that for progressive voters looking for a leader and a party to defeat Mr. Harper, the NDP circle could not be squared – that their promise to balance the budget did not align with the traditional brand promise of the New Democrats.

In contrast, the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, promoted a progressive agenda and recognized that a budget deficit would be needed to fulfill the Liberal platform promises. In effect, the Liberals acted and made promises people would expect from the Liberals while the NDP broke their brand promise.

This also explains why the Liberals continue to be quite popular. Even though some promises may be delayed and perhaps in the future not implemented – they are governing as Canadians would expect a Liberal Party to govern – focused on a progressive agenda, proactive in federal leadership within the federation, trying to strengthen the economy and willing to run a deficit.

As long as the Liberals keep their brand promise, setting aside potential self-inflicted political wounds, expect the Liberals to continue to be strong. As for the NDP, delivering on their brand promise should be front and centre as they work to chart their own future.

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