Harper the psychotic control freak

Documents expose Harper's obsession with control

The government of Stephen Harper is taking extreme steps to control all federal events, a process that has blurred the time-honoured separation of non-partisan public servants and that officials and public-policy analysts say is undermining democracy.

OTTAWA—An MP’s Sunday afternoon visit to a seniors’ home. The federal purchase of powerful new military aircraft. A journalism student’s innocuous query about Africa.
 

One thing connects them all — the Conservative government scripted each event using a potent but little-known communication tool called the Message Event Proposal.
 

The Canadian Press has obtained almost 1,000 pages of MEPs from several government departments, including the Privy Council Office, under the Access to Information Act. The PCO, the bureaucratic nerve centre of Ottawa, has been conscripted by an increasingly powerful Prime Minister’s Office to vet requests for public events across the federal government.
 

The MEPs have blurred the time-honoured separation of non-partisan public servants and political staffers and sidelined seasoned government communicators, sapping morale across the civil service.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/06/06/documents_expose_harpers_obsession_with_control.html