A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
A government by any other name
There I was - planted in front of the TV - minding my own business the other night and it happened. Up came this image of a girl playing soccer. Then there was a couple painting a living room ceiling. A guy working in his wood-working shop. And an elderly couple pleasure skating… All the while, the upbeat announcer told me about the many and diverse ways all those average Canadians were saving money thanks to Ottawa's new tax cuts program. Finally, the ad wrapped up with this tag line: “A message from the Government of Canada.”
I didn't understand. How could a department as important as Revenue Canada have been left out? Why would the federal cabinet be so absent minded? Where was the fail-safe of the federal bureaucracy to catch this horrible oversight? How could the Tax Man have fallen through the cracks? You'd think Revenue Canada would be the first to realize that it's not a message from the Government of Canada anymore. It's a message from… “…The Harper Government.”
Or maybe Revenue Canada didn't get the memo that Fisheries and Oceans, Finance, International Trade, Health Canada and Industry Canada did. And it's likely that even Revenue Canada would have missed it, had not an eagle-eye reporter at Canadian Press not discovered that a new directive went out to public servants late last year pointing out that “Government of Canada” was to be replaced in federal communiqués by the words “Harper Government.” In fact, when questioned by CP, the national news agency, public servants from four different departments said the instruction came from “The Centre,” i.e. the Prime Minister's Office.
Well, I guess I have no problem with the edict, provided it gets attached to all of the federal government's latest activities and initiatives.
In other words, I guess we shouldn't be critical of the fact that our own Member of Parliament Bev Oda hand wrote the word “not” onto a document to renew funding to KAIROS, and then told a parliamentary committee that she had no idea who had made the change. Instead, I guess we should follow the PMO's recommendation and attribute such as decision to “The Harper Government.”
There's also the interesting revelation, last week, that four Conservatives sitting in the Senate chambers in Ottawa, allegedly broke Election Canada non-partisan rules by using national funding to support local election campaigns. The money flip, it's alleged, goes back to the 2006 federal election, when $1.3 million was shifted between local ridings and national party accounts to buy TV ads. The “in and out” scheme has come to the attention of the Speaker of the House, who will determine whether the actions of Doug Finley, Irving Gerstein and others constitute contempt of Parliament. Or, following protocol issued at the top, should we therefore insert as the accused: “The Harper Government”?
Then there's the recent controversy over at the office of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Not only was Jason Kenney involved in the Bev Oda incident, for allegedly calling KAIROS an anti-Semitic organization, but he is also facing accusations that he used government letterhead to attract donations to the Conservative Party. Again, with the December missive from the PMO, perhaps it's not the office of Mr. Kenney that's speaking, but more accurately “The Harper Government.”
And here's one I'm sure I missed the first time round.
Remember last fall, when former military officer Pat Stogran stood up for Canada's veterans, who were protesting changes to the way they were compensated for injuries sustained in the line of duty. Remember, that in the face of new legislation that would see debilitated Afghanistan veterans take a mandatory lump-sum payment instead of continuous, lifelong pension coverage, decorated PPCLI Col. Stogran was let go. Maybe it wasn't Veterans Affairs Canada that fired Ombudsman Stogran for acting on behalf of his former comrades-in-arms. Perhaps it was more correctly, “The Harper Government.”
Credit where it's due. And yet I keep asking myself, why the change? For the first 21 months of Mr. Harper's minority administration, we were all told repeatedly that everything coming from Ottawa - promises, policies, public relations and legislation - was not coming from Parliament, not from the Canadian Government, but all courtesy of “the new Canadian Government.” Just when I was getting used to the new Harper mantra, he went and changed it.
And by the way, my repeating the phrase “The Harper Government” now seven times in this column was not included in the expenditure the Prime Minister and his government made to advertise Canada's Economic Action Plan - the $26 million alone to create, produce and air those ads about tax savings I mentioned at the top.
No, my use of the term falls definitely outside the category of stimulus spending.
