Can Advertising Change Our Minds on HST?

(Aired on September 15, 2010)

Advertising works.  It's a slogan that has kept my industry afloat through some pretty tough times.  But we'll see just how well advertising works in the next year.

A year from now, British Columbians will go to the polls to show their feelings on the Harmonized Sales Tax.  If the referendum was to be held today, the results would likely be very ominous for the Liberal government.  And as TRU Political Studies professor Ray Pillar said yesterday, the referendum will foreshadow the next provincial election.

But who knows how we'll all feel about the HST in a year's time.  During that interval, the Campbell government and their big business friends will likely want to max out on advertising the benefits of the HST.  There will surely be spending limits placed on direct advertising, but there are always ways in which special interest groups can skirt those rules.  You can count on being blitzed with propaganda.

But the anti-HST crowd has a bit of an advantage.  While money must be spent to explain the benefits of certain tax policy, no money will need to be spent to convince the public that politicians are shady and coniving.  It's an instinct probably all of us have.  The government will be successful if it can shift attention away from how it sprung the HST on an unsuspecting public, and onto the benefits of a particular tax policy.  If the debate focuses on cynical politics, however, I'm afraid the HST - and the Liberal government in turn - will be sunk.