Monday, September 21, 2009

Pig Flu Commercials?

Iggy is on my TV talking right now about how abhorrent it is for the Government to spend more money promoting their Economic Action Plan than on commercials to warn people of the pig flu. This is intended to cement the argument that the Liberal Party cannot possibly negotiate legislation with the Tories. Seriously? We need to run television commercials to warn people about the pig flu? The virus is no more lethal than the normal flu. Do we really need to whip the public into hysteria over the flu? Remember what happened to Toronto with SARS? It paralyzed the economy. The harm inflicted by the hysteria did far, far more damage than the virus itself. The Government should be buying vaccine for distribution to high risk citizens, yes. But television commercials? If we have never run ads for the regular flu, why should we do it for a bug with comparable mortality?

This brings me to the promotion of the Economic Action Plan. Have you ever heard of something called “consumer confidence”? When consumers are confident, they are more likely to engage in commerce. If we want to help speed this economic recovery, we are going to need to have the people of Canada participate. Setting up a webpage to tell people how they can save money or qualify for grants is a noble venture. The “sky is falling” PR strategy of the Liberal Party does more harm to our economy than the absence of “wash your hands and be afraid” commercials about the pig flu.

I do agree with Michael on the HST. That may not have been the brightest move by the Feds. Gordon Campbell says he only did it to extract the bounty from Ottawa.

2 comments:

  1. Iggy must not read many newspapers (who does anymore?) nor listen to the radio or watch TV. Stories about H1N1 are everywhere. It would be an enormous waste for the government to attempt to duplicate what the private sector is doing well already.

    Better to spend that money in areas where the MSM is not already doing the governments job for them.

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  2. Of course the fact that the Conservatives are spending their money to promote themselves and the public's money on telling the people about H1N1 escapes Liberal minds.

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