Rituals of Rhetoric and Nationhood: The Liberal Anti-Deficit Campaign (1994-1998)

Journal of Canadian Studies, Spring 2004 by Weinroth, Michelle

Deficitism on the Stage of Nationalist Discourse

In arguing that the anti-deficit discourse can be interpreted as a variety of nationalist discourse, and that its defining shape is quintessentially dramatic, I am proposing a second-level reading of the Liberals' campaign. Construed literally, the anti-deficit campaign lends itself to strictly economic debates; but seen semiotically, the Liberals' project can be read as a narrative articulated through a metalanguage (Barthes 1957, 195-200). Such an idiom translates the literal level of mathematical charts and fiscal models onto a second order of language that is ideological; it transforms the immediate, denotative meaning of statistics, numerical data, and economic charts into emotionally charged literary tropes that arouse human subjectivity.

Precisely because the Liberals' campaign was a propagandist enterprise, its function was not to educate the public on matters of finance, but to "agitate" and awaken people into a state of receptiveness. Sounding public opinion through Pollara Inc. and Earnscliffe Research and Communications, the Liberals strategically popularized the fiscal question with icons of crisis, abandoning any detailed explanation of the minutiae of deficits. The battle over the deficit question was won by the "rhetoricians" of economics, not by economists themselves. Thus, the Liberals turned dire straits into an advertising opportunity, transforming an otherwise obscure subject of public finance into a riveting dramatic event of national magnitude. In outward appearance, their anti-deficit propaganda was a fiscal language, remote from popular sensibility; yet, in essence, their talk of debts and deficits acted as the focal point of civic responsibility, duty to nationhood, and trust in salvational leaders. In these sundry features we can glimpse the signs of a campaign that exploited the language of nation-building for its own consensual ends.

Admittedly, while the Liberals' propaganda does not qualify as a form of nationalism per se (insofar as nationalism is a social movement), the propaganda was none the less a symbolic language, a nationalist discourse, whose purpose was to help ideologues secure political consent. Such an idiom draws on three core ideals of the doctrine of nationalism: autonomy, collective unity, and identity (Smith 2001, 26-27). First, nations must have full self-expression, self-regulation, or self-rule. second, their collective unity refers to "an intense bond of solidarity" (Smith 2001, 26), a consensual unity that guarantees ideological cohesion. Third, identity has often come to signify the distinctive features of national character, the historical traits of a given people, construed as authentic national qualities (Smith 2001, 27).

In appearance, the anti-deficit campaign constructed a heightened moment of Canadian sovereignty. Even while the global market, and notably the International Monetary Fund, acted as an external force, pressuring the Liberal government to pursue a monetarist agenda (Camdessus 1995), the campaign was presented as an autonomous Canadian undertaking.14 Martin's 1995 budget speech, which announced heavy cuts to the public sector, injected into its prefatory remarks the goal of self-affirmation in the face of adversity. It urged Canadians to relinquish the status quo and adopt "a new road of fundamental reform"-an option that would imply a challenge, indeed an ordeal, through which Canadians could affirm their identity: "Mr. Speaker, there are times in the progress of a people when fundamental challenges must be faced, fundamental choices made-a new course charted. For Canada, this is one of those times. Our resolve, our values, our very way of life as Canadians are being tested" (Martin 1995, 1).