Harper Issues Orders To Use The Public Service For Conservative Electoral Purposes
"To finalize its campaign preparations for the upcoming federal election, the Prime Minister's Office has instructed all the Cabinet minister's offices to put together binders pertaining to their portfolios, which outline anticipated opposition attacks during the course of the campaign and how to respond, Conservative sources told The Hill Times last week.
"All ministers' offices have been told to prepare binders for the campaign ... This is just summarizing all of the anticipated lines of criticism, what we've done, and so the people on the campaign have [all the material before the writ is dropped]. It's basically so that the people on the campaign, when something arises, they don't need to go to the minister's offices [for a response]. They want to have all the material on hand," a Conservative source told The Hill Times last week, adding that ministerial offices have been instructed to submit the information by this week."
Abbas Rana
"All ministers' offices have been told to prepare binders for the campaign ... This is just summarizing all of the anticipated lines of criticism, what we've done, and so the people on the campaign have [all the material before the writ is dropped]. It's basically so that the people on the campaign, when something arises, they don't need to go to the minister's offices [for a response]. They want to have all the material on hand," a Conservative source told The Hill Times last week, adding that ministerial offices have been instructed to submit the information by this week."
Abbas Rana
Getting Ministerial aides to write up briefing books with reubttals and answers to difficult questions would be a political--not administrative--mattter and therefore the purview of the politicians--not the civil service.
It's analogous to having a big brother do your homework for you.
Harper is crossing the line on this if this is true and the civil service should call him out on this to the national media.
But maybe that's Harper's view: Civil servants as lackeys to do the Conservatives' bidding.
Very snake in the grass and underhanded of the Harperites.
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:29 pm, September 01, 2008
I can just see Con candidates saying, "Wait a minute," then shuffling through his/her binder to find the answer to voter's or reporter's question.
Posted by
Chrystal Ocean |
7:21 pm, September 01, 2008