If there's one thing the Liberals don't know how to do, it's to communicate. Max Fawcett writes:

After nearly eight years in power, one thing has become abundantly clear about Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government: it can’t communicate to save its increasingly vulnerable political life. From the carbon tax to COVID-19, its otherwise good policies are consistently undermined by a total inability to explain them to Canadians. And for some reason, it seems determined to add its response to Canada’s housing crisis to this list.

Witness the op-ed published last week in the National Post under Minister of Housing Ahmed Hussen’s byline that almost seemed designed to irritate young people in Canada’s biggest cities. It began with the patronizing suggestion that housing “is not a political issue,” one that was undermined almost immediately by a lengthy political attack on Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre. But as Matt Lundy, an economics reporter for the Globe and Mail, noted on Twitter, “I assure you, we think it's political!”

It's a lot more than political:

Yes, the Liberal government implemented a national housing strategy in 2018, an $82-billion plan to build more social housing and help first-time buyers get into the market. That’s more than the Harper Conservatives did while they were in office, and it marked a welcome return by the federal government to the table. But so far, it’s been insufficient to meet the growing challenge housing poses for so many people. It’s like trying to fight a house fire with a water gun — sure, it’s better than nothing, but it’s not doing much for the people in harm’s way.

That doesn’t seem to have gotten through to the Liberals. In his op-ed, Hussen wrote: “We are putting Canada on track to double housing construction over the next decade. And we are just getting started.” But after eight years in power, and with a housing market that is more treacherous and less affordable than ever, Canadians don’t want to hear that the government is “just getting started.”

Canadians don't want to be lectured to. But the Liberals like to lecture:

The fact that younger voters in Canada’s big cities and suburbs are more open to Poilievre than they’ve been to a Conservative leader in decades should be a huge, flashing warning sign to the government. That support, after all, has nothing to do with his habit of posing with anti-LGBTQ bigots or non-existent climate policies, and it’s definitely not a product of his charm or charisma. It’s a reflection of the fact that he’s the only federal leader who seems to be taking this issue seriously. If the Trudeau Liberals don’t start doing the same, they’ll deserve to lose the next election.

As readers of this blog know, I'm no fan of Poilievre. But political malpractice from the Liberals could assure his ascension. The movie Cool Hand Luke popularized the phrase, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

That's precisely what we have here.

Image: YouTube