A message worth repeating

I'm a bit surprised that none of the federal opposition parties has yet picked up on the Cons' habit of grabbing media attention for their own ads by putting together and promoting a compilation of stories and commentary about Harper's lies, secrecy and broken promises. But if any of them plan on doing so, Randall Denley once again offers up exactly the kind of message which they should be looking to include:

Although I follow the federal government closely, I couldn't tell you a single inspirational national goal Harper has identified. In fact, it seems his only goal is re-election.

Rather than point the country in the right direction and encourage Canadians to achieve, Harper runs a grim command-and-control regime that wouldn't be out of place in the Kremlin. Even the most innocuous information is ruled secret, even the most straightforward question ducked. One could argue that Harper's attempt to micromanage the government and his insistence that most everything come through his office is the opposite of leadership. Far from empowering Canadians to act, our PM isn't even empowering his own cabinet.

Toughness might be one characteristic of a leader, but if that's all you've got you'd better hope you're leading a dictatorship. At times, Harper seems to be under the mistaken impression that he is.

Well said

The most important question surrounding the Cons' policy of obsessive secrecy and political control has always been whether or not it would be duly recognized and criticized. Fortunately, the last few weeks have seen far more media willingness to call out the Cons for their information embargo - and Randall Denley's column on information suppression at Environment Canada may be the strongest statement yet:

(A) leaked department PowerPoint presentation says the options (facing an Environment Canada expert) are asking the expert to "respond with approved lines," having media relations respond, referring the call to the minister's office or to another department. Having the expert talk to the media as if he were a grownup doesn't appear on the list. While stopping short of denying the existence of the document the news story relies on, Jack says he hasn't seen it. Sounds like he's not going to look for it, either...

The media control specialists in the federal government are canny enough to know that if they say nothing, most any story will eventually fade away. The problem for the Stephen Harper government is that it takes that tack so often, out of concern for its image, that it is having the contrary effect of damaging its image. One really has to ask, what has this government got to hide? Do the public servants know a lot of things that would scandalize us if we knew, too?...

In fairness, one has to thank Environment Canada for continuing to release the weather forecasts without clearance from above. Baird might want to rethink that. If the weather were cold all the time, maybe people wouldn't be as worried about global warming. The government could just say the weather was cold and stick to its story. We'd all know it was untrue, but it would fit well with the government's overall communications policy.

It remains to be seen whether or not Denley and others will take their rightful concern about the Cons' dishonesty to its logical conclusion by giving proportionately less voice to the federal government's spin doctors, and putting more effort into digging behind the public facade. And if (as seems likely) the Cons' rationale for silencing the public service is indeed based on skeletons waiting to emerge from their closet, then the potential rewards for that type of shift figure to be significant.

Regardless of how much followup there is, though, it's an important first step for the mainstream press to recognize and point out the disconnect between the Con party line and anything resembling the truth. And that message will hopefully be enough on its own to confirm to Canadian voters that they're best off taking power out of Harper's hands as quickly and decisively as possible.