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Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised regular updates on his government’s efforts as Canada continues to work through a U.S. trade war while also seeking to strengthen relationships with other trading partners — and his medium of choice appears to be YouTube.
“I promise you, I will never sugarcoat our challenges,” Carney said in a video posted April 19 and titled Forward Guidance. “Instead, I’ll talk with you directly and regularly about our plan — why we’re doing what we’re doing, what’s working, what isn’t, and what we’re going to do next.”
The 10-minute video has racked up more than 500,000 views, easily surpassing Carney’s previous posts in both length and audience reach. But the video has also been panned by Conservatives, who say it’s just words without action.
So why did Carney turn to YouTube for this update, and suggest more like it are on the way? CBC’s The House spoke to former political advertising and digital strategists about the prime minister’s approach, and whether Canadians will like and subscribe to the idea.
Carney ‘playing to his strengths’
Dave Sommer, a former digital strategist for Justin Trudeau, said Carney is “playing to his strengths” as someone who has succeeded in the past with longer speeches like his address in Davos earlier this year.
“I think he’s understood his battlefield is not necessarily the quick soundbite or the clip from question period,” Sommer told host Catherine Cullen. He added that YouTube is a platform that rewards long-form explainer videos.
Melanie Paradis, who worked as director of communications for former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, explained that YouTube also provides helpful data that can show when viewers tune out and when they hit subscribe.
Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed current trade talks with the United States ahead of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement review are not the norm but said ‘we have more than enough’ to do in Canada for U.S. relations to be the first focus. ‘I do not get up first thing in the morning and think about the United States,’ Carney said.
“I think we can anticipate each time one of these comes out, they’ll have learned something from the data the last time,” Paradis said.
To go one step further, Carney’s team could also identify which moments resonate the most with audiences and cut clips of his longer videos to share on other social media platforms, Paradis said.
Carney says Canada’s U.S. ties have become ‘weaknesses’ that must be corrected
“I think they’ll put more videos of him out,” she added. “They won’t necessarily all be Forward Guidance, but this style, this format — I think we’ll see a pretty regular cadence of them.”
Justin Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper tried their hands at content creation. Later in his term Trudeau was producing explainer-style videos, while Harper had his 24 Seven videos.
Since the Harper and Trudeau years, YouTube has continued to grow and cement itself as one of the most visited sites on the internet. So it makes sense for Carney to park his messages there, according to Dennis Matthews, a former advertising adviser to Harper.
“When you think about why you go onto a platform like YouTube, it’s because that’s where regular people across the country are at,” he said.
Matthews said there’s a misconception that people need short clips to stay engaged. He said there’s an appetite for longer videos and pointed to MrBeast, one of YouTube’s most popular channels, which posts videos ranging from 15-50 minutes.
Talking to Canadians in a crisis
Mark Carney’s video resembles former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats. In a series of 30-minute radio broadcasts, Roosevelt spoke to Americans during the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Depression-era prime minister R.B. Bennett also directly addressed Canadians in lengthy, uninterrupted radio speeches while the nation was gripped by economic hardship.
In one broadcast in 1935, Bennet remarked: “The old order is gone. It will not return.”
The Trump administration is demanding multiple trade concessions from Canada as the cost of entry to formal Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement renegotiations, sources tell Radio-Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney says talks will take time, but vows the U.S. will not dictate terms.
According to Sommer, leaders see crises as opportunities to speak directly to the people, and it’s more beneficial to use their own platform than to go through a middle channel like a news organization.
Paradis noted that delivering messages by YouTube also means there are no interruptions or challenging questions from reporters.
“So it’s a powerful tool in that sense, because it’s completely contained,” she said.
Conservatives pan Carney’s video
On Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre panned Carney’s video, arguing the only talks the prime minister is engaging in regarding Canada’s trade war “are YouTube videos where he’s comparing himself to Sir Isaac Brock and holding up little figures in his office.”
“He told all of you the other day that with his new majority, he was going to stop showboating,” Poilievre said. “And then a few days later he puts out a showboating YouTube video.”
Brock was a British general dubbed the “hero of Upper Canada” during the War of 1812 against the United States.
On Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Prime Minister Mark Carney’s approach to Canada-U.S. economic relations and the upcoming review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. ‘Nobody knows Mark Carney’s plan,’ Poilievre said. ‘Probably not even him.’
Paradis said Poilievre — a talented content creator — has provided a masterclass to Canadian politicians on how to create compelling content. With Carney potentially joining the fray, she said Poilievre may now face new competition.
“[Carney]’s got the office of the prime minister and all the infrastructure behind him to support doing that, and there’s an automatic baked-in audience that you’ll have,” Paradis said.
Poilievre says Carney has been ‘losing, losing, losing’ on U.S. trade war
Matthews said invoking Brock may raise eyebrows, but it may also work to the prime minister’s benefit by getting people to talk about his video.
“You need to have some devices that give people recall and give them something to think about and give us something to criticize,” Matthews said. “That’s what gets people talking about this kind of content.”
Source: cbc
