Liberals want to talk about Canada’s credit rating. No one is listening.

Canadian federal governments have been “welcoming” plaudits from global credit rating agencies for more than two decades, but perhaps never as enthusiastically as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration.

On May 2, Moody’s rating agency released a statement touting Canada’s fiscal and economic outlook and reaffirming the country’s top-ranked AAA rating.

Liberal MPs and the party’s boosters on social media were quick to rally around the news, seeing it as validation of the government’s economic policies. At a time when it’s facing a barrage of criticism on its handling of the economy, Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will take any good news where they can find it.

And there’s plenty of positivity from Moody’s. Here’s an excerpt:

“The ratings affirmation reflects Moody's view that Canada's significant credit strengths will continue to preserve its AAA-rated sovereign credit profile, underpinned by its high economic strength and very strong institutions and governance. Together, these factors provide Canada with a strong foundation for future growth and a very high degree of economic resiliency to potential shocks, supported by robust monetary, macroeconomic and fiscal policy frameworks.”

At a minimum, the Moody’s report is a reminder that – regardless of how bad one may think the government is handling the economy - we remain in a relatively healthy position, at least compared to peer economies.

Yet, it is also true that the only people talking about Moody’s are Liberals. One former staffer pointed out that there wasn't a single news report on the Moody’s announcement.

While Liberals are grumbling about a lack of coverage, this is not surprising to me. There’s been no change in the credit rating for more than two decades. Things not changing aren’t exactly fodder for a good news story.

But perhaps the lack of media coverage illustrates a bigger truth. Maintaining the country’s credit rating is not seen as a particularly high bar of success.

Canadian governments have been touting the country’s global ratings since 2002, when Moody’s raised Canada to its highest echelon of creditworthiness. It hardly gets any play.

The Liberals inherited the AAA credit rating. They didn’t earn it; they are just custodians of it. And from a news angle, there’s only one direction for coverage to go: down.

Still, that hasn’t stopped Freeland and the governing Liberals from talking about it a lot over the last couple of years. In fact, no Canadian government has ever talked more about the country’s credit rating.

There have been more than 250 references in parliament to Canada’s AAA credit rating since the 2021 election, according to a quick search on Parliament’s website, almost all of it by Liberals. That number is greater than all mentions to AAA ratings in the previous two decades.

The heightened interest reflects obviously the dramatically changed debt profile over the past few years. The federal government’s debt has almost doubled in recent years, and Freeland wants to assure Canadians the nation’s creditworthiness hasn’t been compromised.  (Reminder: One ratings agency – Fitch – has already downgraded the country.)

But the government’s emphasis on the rating also reflects its efforts to retake the initiative on the economic narrative. The Liberals have not only lost the public on its handling of the economy but also elite opinion, an important driver of Liberal sensibilities.

Trudeau and Freeland are trying to counter a lot of negativity out there, which government officials believe doesn’t reflect the true state of the economy – which they see as relatively robust.

For many good stories, such as Warren Buffett’s recent praise for the Canadian economy, there are many more negative ones such as a recent opinion piece in the U.K.’s Financial Times which cited Canada’s performance as a cautionary tale.

Read more analysis by Theo Argitis at meansandways.ca.