The undeclared war

CanWest reports on the Cons' ongoing war against federal institutions. But while there may not be much new to say about the actual battles, the Cons' poor explanation for the war as a whole deserves to be put under the microscope:

Conservative strategist Geoff Norquay says the Liberals have constructed "a splendid little narrative" out of events that should each be considered separately on its own merits. He said all governments have tensions with regulators, that firings that have taken place were justified and all governments have shut down institutions "that have outlived their usefulness."...

Since Harper won a minority government in the winter of 2006, there have been at least 15 firings, resignations, shutdowns and showdowns with federal watchdogs, advisory bodies and government agencies.

Among them are the Elections Canada fight, the firing of the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the top two officials of the Canadian Wheat Board, the shutdown of the Law Commission of Canada, and the resignation of the chair and advisory panel of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Several senior environmental and scientific positions were eliminated and several officers of parliament - the ethics commissioner, the chief electoral officer and the information commissioner - retired after high profile run-ins with Harper's government.

In addition, Auditor general Sheila Fraser recently exposed a government plan to require her agency and other officers of Parliament to vet their communications through the prime minister's office. The government appears to have realized this is a step too far and backed down.

In each case, the government has had a unique justification for tackling an institution.

It accuses Elections Canada of waging "a partisan vendetta" because it is investigating suspected Conservative party election financing violations but not practices by other parties the Conservatives say are the same.

It fired Linda Keen, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, on grounds she did not take medical isotope supplies into account when she closed an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. nuclear research reactor for a safety update. Critics say it was not up to Keen to secure alternate isotope supplies and she was a scapegoat for government incompetence.

Norquay says all governments have periodic tensions with some regulators and the Conservatives are no different. He says the Law Commission of Canada was closed because it had outlived its usefulness, that the Wheat Board president was fired because he refused to implement government policy, and that all of these events are unrelated.

Again, it's worth keeping in mind the lengths which Stephen Harper has gone to in order to impose top-down control over the government - a process which is only going further with time. Which can leave no doubt that Harper's handprints are all over the skirmishes with the civil service.

And of course, the Cons themselves have tried to pitch the idea that Harper's every move is based on his own shrewd strategy. (Though for now, Tom Flanagan still stands alone in being willing to talk publicly about what the end goal actually is.)

All of which would seem to leave absolutely no room for the Cons to now argue that it's unfair to consider the big picture that they're aiming for. But that's exactly the argument that they seem to want to make: having publicly sold the story that their every move is a product of Harper's strategic plan, they now want Canadians to believe that it's unfair to link their actions back to the obvious controlling mind and mindset behind them.

Naturally, it would suit the Cons just fine if Canadians were gullible enough to believe that their war against public institutions could be explained by sheer coincidence. But the Cons have offered no reason why they should be taken at their word - and every reason to think that it'll take a change in government to end the hostilities.