The inevitable has happened with this government’s too-clever-by-half branding of their associate finance minister, and she has essentially been caught out by the easiest trap imaginable. The Conservatives submitted an Order Paper question asking for a definition of “middle class” by which the government could measure the success of its efforts at ensuring their prosperity, and lo, they were told that there is no measure that the government uses. Which is kind of embarrassing for a government that prides itself on data and metrics – that’s one of the reasons why they actually bit the bullet and decided on the Market-Basket Measure of poverty as their official definition, because that allowed them to track the success of their programmes in alleviating it (and yes, programmes like the Canada Child Benefit have had a measurable impact using these kinds of data). But what they can do for poverty, they can’t do for the Middle Class™.
Of course, we all know that it’s because “middle class” isn’t an economic definition to this government, but a feel-good branding exercise. It’s the Middle Class™ And Those Working Hard To Join It, because we all know that everyone thinks they’re middle class (whether or not they have ponies), and most especially people on the wealthier end of the scale in this country. It’s all about a feeling, or a hand-wavey metric about having kids in hockey (an upper-class pursuit in this country). And this lack of a definition is exactly why this minister is the Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity®, because it means nothing. It’s a trademarked slogan, transparently winking to Canadians about how this is how they plan to address the discontent underlying the populist movements taking place across the government – hoping that if they can reassure these voters that they’re being care of and not left behind, that they’re being heard, that somehow, it’ll keep the populist forces at bay. I’m not sure that it will work, but it’s blatantly happening, so we should all be aware that this is part of their plan.