Ottawa

Act now, and we’ll throw in an additional stimulus package - (not remotely) free of charge!!

By Kady O'Malley

… or, why does this latest twist in the pre-budget plot remind me of a direct mail marketing campaign?

Colleague Geddes has all the details on the new era of preemptive budget announcements and what it might mean as far as the message strategy for next week, but for some reason, I was particularly struck by this quote, which appears towards the end of the Canadian Press report on today’s events:

“There has been a lot of speculation on deficit figures,” said the official. “So we’re sharing the latest information with you.”

Doesn’t that sound more like a line that Doug Finley would insert into a Conservative fundraising bulletin than something an unnamed senior government official would say to a room full of Hill bureau chiefs, on or off the record? (Whether or not it is appropriate for any government official, senior or otherwise, to cherrypick numbers from a confidential document just to get ahead of the news cycle is another issue entirely, of course.)