Harper and Secrecy, Muzzling of the Watchdogs

Stephen Harper has built his reputation as an utter control freak. He’s reknowned for ensuring watchdogs don’t criticize and whistleblowers don’t speak out against anything his Conservative minority government does. This attitude is permeating our government and is preventing Canadians from the access to information that we need to make informed decisions. The National Post¹ (4 February 2008) reported

“Robert Marleau, the information commissioner of Canada, says that contrary to Mr. Harper’s election pledge to make transparency a hallmark of his administration, a “fog over information” has crept across the government’s activities. Marleau said complaints to the commissioner’s office about lack of access to government information have doubled in the past year.

. . . public servants, ambassadors, as well as cabinet ministers and Conservative MPs are muzzled or kept on a short leash. Canwest News Service revealed last week that Environment Canada’s scientists, once among the most media-accessible specialists, have been slapped with orders to refer all journalists’ queries to the government where communications officers will help them respond with “approved lines.”"

It’s not a good sign when the information comissioner complains that the government is putting a fog over information.

Getting information out to the public is one issue, how it’s presented is another and Harper’s Conservatives have a machine for that too. The Toronto Star² reported (26 May 2008) about the Con machine (first part of a good series they wrote on the topic).

“Questions on the hot issues of the day all get funnelled through this office, the “communications and consultations” unit of the Privy Council Office. . . Public appearances by cabinet ministers – whether it’s a speech or an interview – are carefully staged, starting with a “message event proposal” vetted by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic wing of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

And in a marked change from previous governments, now even basic demands for information from reporters, once easily fielded by department spokespersons, are sent to this office for review – and often heavy editing – before they are okayed for public release, government insiders say.”

It shows how contolled the information we receive from the government is, everything is crafted for the spin the Conservatives desire.

It goes further than information and messaging though, government appointed watchdogs that were supposed to ensure more accountability also get silenced when their message isn’t helpful to the Conservative cause. There are a number of examples, I won’t try to point them all out but consider what the National Post³ (18 June 2009) said of budget watchdog, Kevin Page (PBO).

“the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (OPBO) provides authoritative, non-partisan financial and economic analysis to support Parliament and parliamentarians in exercising their oversight role over the government’s stewardship of public funds and in ensuring budget transparency.

Kevin Page was appointed as the first budget officer in March of 2008. It was a move intended to create more transparency in government by explaining to Canadians about fiscal planning and scrutiny of budget estimates. In government there is so much spending that goes unaccounted for, unexamined, and unexplained that I had high hopes for Mr.Page. Unfortunately, it appears his job has been hampered by a plague of budget cuts.

Mr. Page has said a lack of consistent reporting and transparency from the government has made estimating difficult, but he has still projected far larger deficits than the government. From reworking the estimates, to revising corporate revenue projections, he has angered the Conservative government by challenging its forecasts. For essentially doing his job. For holding to account Mr.Flaherty when he makes predictions like this. Part of being “accountable” is having an authority which is able to hold the government to their projections.”

The Globe and Mail⁴ (26 June 2009) corroborates this issue. Kevin Page was supposed to more or less say what the Conservatives liked and when he didn’t, they implied they wouldn’t fund his office anymore. That threat would essentially have shut him down, but instead they offered this.

“Mr. Page has been offered the $2.8-million budget he was promised more than a year ago. But the condition is that he no longer report on “the state of the nation’s finances and trends in the national economy” directly to the House of Commons and the public.”

So he gets to keep doing what he was supposed to do, just so long as it doesn’t get easily released to the public, without presumably going through the Conservative stamp of approval machine.

Finally, the Toronto Star⁵ (24 December 2009) reported on the muzzling phenomenon, as I mentioned, it extends well beyond Page.

“Three essential oversight agencies will begin 2010 without leadership and wearing government-issued blinkers. By hook and crook, Harper Conservatives have gutted the effectiveness of the Military Complaints Commission, the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP and the Office of the Information Commissioner.

All three top posts are now empty. Not one was vacated quietly.

Peter Tinsley is howling that pushing him out of the job will effectively kneecap the already crippled inquiry into claims that Afghans tortured prisoners. Paul Kennedy is furious not to be staying to bring fully independent investigations and civilian oversight to the RCMP. Robert Marleau retired as information commissioner in June, a few months after issuing a set of failing-grade report cards that blamed those “at the very top” for systematically denying Canadians information about what the government is doing in their name.”

For a party that spoke a lot about accountability and claimed not to have secret agendas, the actions they’ve taken while in office give every impression that they’re anything but accountable or open.

For more information about Canadian access to information take a look at Stanley Tromp’s site⁶, where he’s published an extensive report on the issue. It’s a very long report, several hundred pages, but you can focus in on the issue of the Conservative minority government’s secrecy with the brief and informative postcript⁷ (PDF).

Informative read from the University of Alberta’s Centre for Constitutional studies, regarding Freedom of the Press and Harper’s Media Policy.