The PCO news release quoting Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) and Veterans Affairs Steven Blaney (Lévis-Bellechasse, Que.), who often assists with French-language commentary for unilingual Cabinet ministers, was issued on Marketwire.com when the House of Commons resumed sitting Monday.
It appears to be the first politically-veined announcement from the Privy Council Office after other government departments and agencies over the past year have issued statements on departmental letterhead that opposition MPs say have crossed partisan lines, notably with their departmental descriptions of the current Cabinet as the Harper government.
The PCO describes itself as the “hub of non-partisan, public service support to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and its decision-making structures,” and Mr. Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Alta.) told The Hill Times he was surprised to discover it too has been incorporated into the government’s political messaging machine.
The only public releases currently posted on the “What’s New” page of the PCO website are two annual reports to Parliament last year regarding data on processing access to information and privacy requests, a quarterly financial report, and a 2012 report on the defunct Public Appointments Commission, which Mr. Harper scrubbed last year after a feud with the opposition over who would head the review agency for cabinet patronage appointments.
The news release appearing on Marketwire.com is not shown on the PCO website, although it does appear among a handful of statements from Mr. Van Loan on his ministerial leader of the government in the House of Commons website.
“It’s a worrisome blurring of the lines when the PCO’s letterhead is used as a cheerleader for government propaganda,” Mr. Martin told The Hill Times.
“The Privy Council Office is supposed to give independent non-partisan advice to Cabinet, not be its chief cheerleader, what’s it doing on their letterhead?” he said.
“The Conservatives don’t seem to have any respect for those delineations, the last thing we want is a politicized Privy Council Office,” Mr. Martin said.
He compared it to an incident involving International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) earlier this month, when the Canadian International Development Agency, which he oversees, had to delete partisan statements from Mr. Fantino that had been posted on the agency’s website.
But a spokesman for Mr. Van Loan dismissed Mr. Martin’s criticism. Communications Director Fraser Malcolm did not respond directly to questions about why the political statement had been issued under Privy Council Office letterhead, but said Mr. Martin appeared to be unhappy with the fact the government was getting its message out to Canadians.
“Clearly the NDP doesn’t like our government’s focus on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity and would prefer we don't communicate with Canadians about it,” Mr. Malcolm said. “That is unfortunate.”
When the government first came under criticism for using the “Harper government” term on news releases and statements from departments and agencies of the public service, its political strategic communications personnel accumulated an extensive sampling of past Liberal government references to the “Paul Martin government” and the “Chrétien government,” as well as similar statements from provincial governments.
Recent news statements issued from departmental media offices, however, have indicated the pattern under the Harper government has spread to the public service.
The media branch in the Privy Council Office did not respond to emailed questions from The Hill Times.
Although Mr. Van Loan is quoted in the PCO news release as using the phrase “Harper government,” another paragraph, without quotation marks attributing the statement to either Mr. Van Loan or Mr. Blaney, says: “The Harper government has led a productive Parliament and its record of accomplishment is clear. In this Parliament, over three quarters of the government’s bills have passed through at least one of the two Chambers, with the majority of the bills having already received royal assent.”
The federal government’s use of time allocation since the 2011 federal election to limit debate and push legislation through the House over opposition parties’ objections has been unprecedented, and sparked bitter confrontations, particularly over two omnibus bills that implemented last year’s federal budget.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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