Flaherty: Spin Alert

I’ve a feeling that we’ll be having to keep a list of misleading terminology warnings or alerts. Spin by any other name smells the same. Flaherty appears to be banking on Canadians’ being too busy to pay attention to the details:

CBC: Flaherty promises new tax relief, aims to eliminate ‘net debt’
[The Conservative government] is proposing to eliminate Canada’s total government net debt by 2021, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Thursday. All future surpluses will be directed at eliminating the federal debt within 15 years, Flaherty said.

Reality check: Flaherty is not saying that Canada will be debt free by 2021. Far from it, Canada will still be in debt, paying real interest, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet by using “net” as a prefix to “debt”, Flaherty can sound like he’s magically paying off our national mortgage, without actually doing so.

Details: Check out your last bank statement. If your bank or credit union is doing a good job they’ve given you a comprehensive listing of your assets (savings and chequeing accounts and the like) and your liabilities (mortgages, car and personal loans, perhaps credit card debt), with a total of each – your “net” balance. For example:

 
    Mythical Credit Union
    Member: Sally and Bobby Average
    ------------------------------------------
    Account Summary
        Assets
            Chequeing Account:      $   500.00
            Savings Account:        $ 2,048.00
        Liabilities
            Car Loan                $ 1,924.00
    ==========================================
        Net Balance(Debt):
                                    $   624.00

Assuming you owe money to your financial institution, though your “net” might be positive, do you feel like you are debt free?

No, of course not.

Flaherty is using a different definition of debt, in the hopes that the Conservatives can capitalize on apparent good news without people realizing that they are talking about a completely different animal than our real, tangible, total government debt. The tactic will be implemented by Conservative MP’s heading back to ridings over the Christmas holidays, trumpeting this among other “good news”. Repeat frequently. No doubt some communications flack will give them their marching orders.

I’ve no problem with the governing party – any party – trumpeting its triumphs, but I do have a problem when exaggeration and deliberate misinformation borders on the edge of lying to the public.

Canada’s total federal government debt as of 2005 was $523,344,000,000 (over five hundred billion dollars). Paying it off at the rate that Flaherty proposes, which is more or less what previous governments have done, would take well over 100 years, not 15.