[huggyface]

Say that it's a "smoke screen" is needlessly partisan. It is, indeed, a line item. It deals with something that has come up for consideration since the 80s. If it gets attention, it gets attention.

But do you think no one notices the other changes because they're ditching the penny? That is preposterous.

[wisty]

Memo by Jo Moore, British special adviser and press officer, 2.55pm on September 11, 2001:

> It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors' expenses?

It's an extremely common practice to release unpopular information, or pass unpopular bills when something else is bound to hit the front page.

[huggyface]

The penny change in no way is distracting from other parts of the budget, and as tabbyjabby mentioned it is focused on here because it has cross-border novelty that the other parts of the budget don't. But among Canadians it is a meh change -- we electronically pay for almost everything now, so the nickle will follow in short order.

[yay_cloud]

It might be construed as a partisan comment, but that is exactly how politics works. After working on a few campaigns (and leaving in disgust), a politician or party will gladly pocket an easy but visible decision like this in order to "steal eyes" away from other -- less positive -- changes or events.

[tabbyjabby]

Ok, but in this specific case, the premise of this being an item that is stealing attention away from the more significant cuts in the budget simply isn't consistent with reality. Go to any national Canadian newspaper. The headline will not refer to the elimination of the penny; it will refer to changes to Old Age Security, or cuts to the CBC. The penny has been but a footnote to budget news. The reason that is the only item of the budget getting attention on HN is because I don't think any non-Canadian HNers really care that our retirement age is now 67, or that health transfers to the provinces have been reduced in this budget.

[JimmyL]

The newspaper headline doesn't matter; what they're aiming for is controlling the message that's shared over coffee between friends, at the water-cooler, on the office IM feed, etc. In that context, all anyone will talk about is cutting the penny.

If this seem familiar, last time around it was changing the words to O Canada (http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/music/story/2010/03/03/o-canada-...).

[lambersley]

I concur.

The reason this topic generates chatter is because its simple to understand. My teenage sister gets it, my 7 y/o gets it, the homeless person at Union understands and the Bay St exec gets it. Its not obviously complicated. It takes $0.16 to make a penny. Its eradication will save millions in Gov't spending. "It costs 1.6 Canadian cents to produce each one cent coin and stamping out the penny will save around C$11 million ($11 million) a year." (1)

The other proposed budget topics aren't so easily understood by the general public. Old Age Security? Greater than 40% of Canadians are <30 years old (2). This isn't likely to be the prevailing conversation topic. CBC? Canadian Crown Corporation? Really? Who knew? Who cares? Who understands the impact?

I don't think mass media has conspired to fool the common man (in this case anyway). Its just a simple conversation topic.

Edit: There really isn't any complication since only cash payments are effected (3)

(1) http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/30/canada-penny-federal...

(2) http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo10a-eng.htm

(3) http://www.budget.gc.ca/2012/themes/theme2-info-eng.html

[maratd]

> "steal eyes" away from other -- less positive -- changes or events.

How is cutting waste less positive? They're conservatives. They get bonus points for cutting things. Now, if they passed tax increases, then you've got a point.

[true_religion]

There's cutting fat, then there's cutting muscle.

The two aren't too similar, but I wouldn't want anyone cutting into me who wasn't a surgeon.

Now with politics, we often have people who claim to cut waste, but are perceived as cutting necessary programs.

[redthrowaway]

Cutting spending is positive among their base, which is about a third of Canadians. The rest typically wouldn't vote Conservative. They and the NDP simply split the Liberal and Bloc vote in the last election.

You may view the CBC and Healthcare as waste; the vast majority of Canadians do not. Harper wants more than anything to convince Canadians that the Conservatives are trustworthy. The last thing he wants is for Canadians to be sick of them by the time the next election rolls around, especially if the Liberals manage to find a halfway competent leader.

That's why Harper's been as centrist as he has, and that's why cuts to popular programs are being delivered alongside this news. He'll stay true to conservative values, but only insofar as they don't hurt his re-election chances.

[gyardley]

Or Harper could just be a fairly centrist politician - after all, there's no better time in Canadian politics to push through radical change than the earliest stages of a majority government, something Harper has never previously had. If his 'true colors' were ever going to show, it'd be right now.

Not everything has to be a conspiracy theory.

[huggyface]

Cutting spending is positive among their base, which is about a third of Canadians.

Cutting spending is a positive among all Canadians. The Liberals had their most populous years when they were responsible for -- and still deserve credit for -- brutal spending cuts (health care transfers, services, etc) that balanced the budget.

While HN isn't the place for discussions like this, it really is hard to rationalize some claims against conservatives with reality. The Conservatives are currently running the largest budgets in Canadian history. They increased transfers to the provinces more than any other government (some would say naively and rashly, making promises that health care spending, for instance, could just increase exponentially forever). They cut the military budget.

But if you read what you just wrote you would think that they were a slash and burn government. Hardly.

It's also worth noting that Harper has the most liberal reign to do what he wants right now, given that he doesn't have to face an election for another four years and memories are infamously short in Canada. He doesn't need to pander to the masses right now, at all, and the same-old "trying to hide the hidden agenda" bits grow enormously tiresome, bringing the sort of ignorance, baseless partisan noise into the discussion that we see too often South of the border.

[redthrowaway]

I'll agree that HN isn't the place for this discussion. I will say, however, that if what I wrote comes across as me thinking he's "hiding his true intentions", that's not what I intended. Rather, he doesn't want to give voters, many of whom would not normally vote Conservative (and didn't when the libs had strong leaders) reason to distrust them. It's not a conspiracy; he's just playing a long game and trying to set up the Conservatives as Canada's new Natural Ruling Party (r).