Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Things to pay attention to.
Not that most of you would notice, but since the Tories took power canada.gc.ca has been turned from a neutral portal promoting Canadian government departments and services into a partisan propaganda tool. Take a visit and you will see that not only is Tory blue splashed everywhere on the screen, but all of a sudden instead of being able to find “Information for Canadians” we are being exhorted to “Write the Troops” and read about how Harper is saving childcare. Instead of fact-based information provided by non-party aligned sources, many of the links on the homepage lead back to the Prime Minister’s own website!
Why is this surprising? Well historically there has always been a clear separation between Canadian politicians and Canadian government departments – the idea being that the bureaucracy is to form the mainstay of program and service delivery and thus can not be on the whirligig that is the four-year term of office in the electoral cycle. This separation is incredibly important to a functioning democracy as it is designed to bring stability and some modicum of neutrality to government day to day – something political parties are not known for.
While I recognize this separation has not ever been as clean as it should be, this latest attempt to take control of all government information channels and stamp them with the new “don’t fuck with us” motto (and yes, they are making a move to have all government websites redesigned with the new look and header) is not only unprecedented, but somewhat frightening. Canada re-branded? Not by Harper please…..
Red Cedar 
Ew. You’re so right. Though, in a way it’s appropriate that the Harper policies are described on his page, not on the department pages. At least there’s *some* separation. It’s pretty cheesy of them to use so much blue. Like it or not, red is our national colour. Next they’ll be changing the RCMP uniform…