Budget Day charade

All the players know what they're going to say already, and so do we: yada yada yada

By: Pat Daley

  It's budget day in Canada.
  This afternoon, while Finance Minister Paul Martin is reading his speech to the House of Commons, the pundits, interests groups, lobbyists, and hangers-on will be milling about, whispering sound bites into one another's ears, and jostling for position in front of the TV cameras like a bunch of kids who actually studied for the quiz.
  "Ask me. Ask me. I know the answer."
  It's got to be one of the easiest days going for reporters on Parliament Hill. Getting interview subjects is like shooting fish in a barrel.
  And they have studied. Don't be impressed by all the pithy comments you hear on the six o'clock news - a mere two hours after Paul Martin started reading a very long speech.
  Most of these people have spent the day locked up in special rooms, eating their fill of government-supplied sandwiches and cookies, getting police escorts to the washroom, and going over the budget line-by-line. It's called the budget lock-up.
  There's one lock-up for the media. The opposition parties usually each have their own and sometimes get their special friends to join them. And there's an invitation-only lock-up for all the groups and organizations that say they speak for the many interests across the land.
  Armies of bureaucrats from the finance ministry, equipped with binders full of briefing notes and calculations, make the rounds to answer questions. Staffers for the political parties, unions, business organizations, farm groups, etcetera, start writing their own briefing notes and developing their group's "spin". Media advisors start testing one-liners that will be repeated on newscasts across the country.
  At some point, the political spokespersons come rolling in to be briefed on the budget and their response. Sometimes they accept the staff advice and sometimes they have their own ideas. They prepare for the press conference.
  The party leaders, finance critics, and the finance minister usually hold their press conference in the lock-up. By early afternoon, everyone's gone through the budget and there isn't much else to do. At four o'clock, when the doors are finally unlocked and the minister starts readings, people with something to say start trolling the halls for reporters to say it to.
  I was going to try to predict what some of those comments would be, but I think from the Canadian Federation for Independent Business to the Canadian Labour Congress they're going to sound pretty much the same except for the details. "I was glad to see yada yada yada but I would have preferred yada yada yada."
  With a mitt full of money to give away and a jobs scandal to bury, Paul Martin's budget will have something for everybody. While the hordes in lock-up are scrambling to come up with critiques that will get some attention, he'll be thinking one thought: ain't it grand to be a Liberal.

Pat Daley is a freelance writer and editor in Athlone in Simcoe County, Ontario.

Get More/Do More
If you want too read the budget for yourself, it will be available shortly after 4:00 p.m. at www.fin.gc.ca.

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