Information control defines Stephen Harper’s government and its notoriously micro-managing, fingers-in-everyone’s-pies Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Theirs is a spin-to-win game that has proven incredibly effective at keeping Harper in office.
The problem is, it’s proven disastrous to governing transparently.
Therefore, this fall’s election should be about Canadians’ right to public information: how and when we get it, how and when we don’t, and who’s to blame when we’re being kept in the dark.
Again and again, Harper’s staff has finessed press conferences through pre-determined question counts and question-askers.
Hundreds of government scientists have been prevented from sharing their work with the public and asked to alter their findings for non-scientific reasons. Details of the over two dozen secret orders-in-council adopted by the government since 2006 have been entirely sealed from Parliament and the public.
On the Mike Duffy file, the government insisted for two months in 2013 that Duffy repaid his Senate expenses all on his own. Harper now says his former chief of staff Nigel Wright acted entirely alone and without the prime minister’s knowledge when he paid Duffy’s $90,000 bill, despite testimony showing former PMO counsel Benjamin Perrin and current PMO chief of staff Ray Novak were aware of Wright’s involvement.
Meanwhile, the Fair Elections Act, ostensibly enacted to curb voter fraud, in fact makes voting harder for students and urban Canadians – groups, conveniently, less likely to vote Conservative.
Bill C-51, the government’s Orwellian security bill, which was marketed to Canadians in the wake of Ottawa’s October shooting on Parliament Hill, increases the spying abilities of Canada’s intelligence organizations to unprecedented levels with little public oversight.
The list goes on. It’s unending. And it’s the sort of round-up that makes you wonder how Harper has held on to power for so long.
Then you remember: with this government, the devil’s always in the detail. Details it seems hell-bent on distorting before making public, if it even bothers.
Secrets, fuelled by the Harper government’s incessant information control, are its secret to success.
Because the more you know, the more you realize someone’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes—and the more you should think about voting accordingly on Oct. 19.
