LOL What a joke!
When Stephen Harper triples the security force outside his office to keep media from covering a Cancer Society photo-op, it looks as if message control has run amok. If he has to micro-manage the agenda for a motherhood story, how will he handle vital national issues?
The prime minister's policies on handling the media are proving to be so restrictive that one might be led to fear his next act will be the creation of a ministry of propaganda.
Harper got off to a bad start as PM by appointing to his cabinet David Emerson and Michael Fortier -- the former a Liberal turncoat and the latter unelected. Now, it appears to be getting worse -- and he has yet to face a howling opposition in Parliament.
To control the message, the PMO says it may keep cabinet meetings secret, so the press gallery can't stake them out -- and question ministers. Alternatively, it may force reporters to wait a floor below the cabinet room, enabling ministers to evade reporters and answer questions only if they choose.
Among other planned access changes are:
* Withholding announcements of visits by heads of state and premiers.
* Banning news photographers from meetings with the above officials and issuing in-house photos instead.
* Making lists of reporters wishing to ask questions, then choosing which to accommodate.
Coming from a party whose leader ran an election campaign pledging accountability, all this smacks of hypocrisy.
A dozen beefy security guards lined the halls outside Harper's office this week to bar journalists from access to a photo-op in which cancer-stricken children presented daffodils to the prime minister on behalf of the Cancer Society. No news photographer in Canada would attempt to shoot unflattering pictures of such a scene.
The PMO has said Harper will meet the media when he has something to say. With politicians, that usually translates into something they want the public to hear, while denying access to ask questions on issues that might be embarrassing.
Harper would do well to heed the words of former U.S. president Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."
His prime ministership is in its young days, and it must be hoped that he will learn to be more forthcoming as elected leader of this nation.
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A breath of fresh air
Garth Turner is one Conservative MP who won't be muzzled by Stephen Harper.
Turner has criticized two controversial Harper cabinet appointments as flying in the face of "accountability and democracy."
Now, he's about to reveal results of a survey he conducted -- and doesn't care if Harper likes it because the PM "has nothing I covet."
It's nice to see some MPs put constituents ahead of servility to their political masters.
London free press |
