In what’s becoming an annual holiday tradition, Liberals all over the country were called to the Thanksgiving feast this past weekend armed with talking points.

Yes, I said ‘talking points’. Called ‘Turkey Talk Tools’, they were emailed to any Liberal who needed snappy answers ready for when grumpy uncles or sarcastic cousins started piping up about politics around the Thanksgiving dinner table.

“We want to make sure you’re prepared for a healthy debate, so we’re giving you the facts,” the email says. Hot topics covered by the talking points included marijuana legalization, trade talks with the United States, asylum seekers at the border and, of course, proposed changes to how small businesses are taxed.

“We love doctors — and every single Canadian who helps support the strong, universal public health care system that our families rely on,” Liberals are reminded in Turkey Talk 2017.

Here’s what the talking points urge loyal Liberals to say when asked why taxes are going up for small businesses: “Just not true — and just like when Stephen Harper was in charge, you can’t believe everything you hear in a Conservative attack ad.”

Though political cynics may scoff, these talking points have proven to be popular — and effective — in sealing Liberal support. Analysis of past elections in Canada has shown that many Canadian voters make up their minds during mid-campaign holidays.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives began to climb in the polls during the Christmas-New Year’s break in the campaign of 2005-06. Trudeau’s Liberals overtook the New Democrats in the polls over Labour Day in the 2015 campaign — and really started to see resounding victory in their sights at Thanksgiving, just one week before the Oct. 19 vote.

Did the talking points help? They didn’t hurt.

Comparing the Turkey Talk cheat sheets is instructive too. The 2015 talking points also had some helpful lines on marijuana legalization and the middle class — lots of suggestions about how to discuss the ‘middle class’ and how to respond when critics said Justin Trudeau didn’t care about poor people, or that he was unfairly going after rich people. (Sound familiar?)

It seems that almost every attempt by this government to talk to Canadians seems doomed to end badly. It seems that almost every attempt by this government to talk to Canadians seems doomed to end badly.

“Listen, if you’re making $200,000 a year or more, you don’t need help from the government, period,” said Turkey Talk 2015.

This year’s instalment is a little more … tactful about wealthy Canadians. “One of the first things we did as a government was raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 per cent, so we could lower them for the middle class,” the 2017 lines suggest.

I’d be curious to know whether these suggested lines were useful to any Liberals around the holiday table last weekend. I’m especially curious about how well they went over this year, because Trudeau’s government seems to be having a lot of trouble in general with the whole concept of talking to Canadians.

We probably can assume that no one in Trudeau’s crew particularly liked the latest column on this very subject from Paul Wells at Macleans; he makes some pretty devastating points about how this government has badly bungled its consultation efforts.

Think about it. On the tax-reform proposals, but also on electoral and parliamentary reform, this government has had a very hard time holding serious consultations on policy matters.

Wells also reminds us that, in most of these cases, the messaging went sideways because inexperienced ministers were put in front of some ill-considered processes — and then were abandoned when things got too hot. Maryam Monsef was the sacrificial lamb on electoral reform. Government House Leader Bardish Chagger got saddled with parliamentary reform. Now it’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s turn.

It seems that almost every attempt by this government to talk to Canadians seems doomed to end badly. There were more resignations at the troubled inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women over the weekend, for instance. The dysfunction there could consume a whole chapter in any future book on this government’s problems with consultations.

It’s also looking like Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly hasn’t really done all that well in the way she handled her consultations on the future of digital communications and media in Canada. The rollout of that announcement, and the reaction, has seemed to get worse with every passing day. Joly’s appearance on the popular Quebec show Tout le Monde En Parle has been widely declared a disaster.

What went wrong? It’s another rookie politician, talking to Canadians — two things we should now recognize as red flags for political trouble in the soon-to-be-two-year-old Liberal government.

Yes, a lot has changed since Turkey Talk 2015.

After nearly a decade of a Conservative government that was decidedly cool to public consultation, inquiries and so forth (but not to talking points), Canadians seemed ready for a government that would talk to them more often. In turn, Trudeau and his new team of Liberals vowed to be far more chatty — with reporters, with citizens, with interest groups, with anyone, really.

Two years later, it’s looking like this government is getting more experience with ducking tough conversations than with talking turkey.

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