Harper's New Gag Order is Fine

[Black Dog]

Again, if there's nothing new to add or nothing new to announce how is talking to the press anything more than a waste of taxpayer time and money?

Just to be clear: we're suppossed to trust the government to tell us what they are up to?

Paul Wells gets it here ( apretty even-handed take, all things told):

Third, during weekly cabinet meetings, reporters, camera crew and Gallery staff wait outside the cabinet room on the third floor of Centre Block, at the only two available exits, to ask ministers questions as they enter and leave. It is unlovely but it is the only sure way to see a given minister and to film or record his answer (or flat refusal to answer) even to questions he didn't want to be asked. This setup allowed us to grill Jane Stewart on the 1999 HRDC audits; Paul Martin on the Clarity Bill at the end of the same year; Alfonso Gagliano on Adscam; Judy Sgro on her pizza parties; Andy Scott on Kashechewan; and so on.

The PMO wants to move those scrums downstairs. This would multiply shy ministers' escape routes. The PMO argues that ministers will be sent out frequently and at great length when they have something to say. The problem, of course, is that this guaranteed weekly access to ministers is most useful when they are desperate not to say anything.

...

Once again: it's very sweet and cute to brag about how eager they'll be to speak to us when they have something to announce, but that argument spectacularly and wilfully misses the point. Ministers have always been eager to speak when they wanted to announce something. They have also, for as long as anyone can remember, been reluctantly, grudgingly, cussedly available, once a week after cabinet meetings, to speak even when it was the last thing in the world they wanted to do because they were, for whatever reason, in a world of trouble. Our worry — so far unproven but very real — is that Stephen Harper has decided he's the first prime minister in decades who gets to spare his ministers that grief.

[August1991]

Again, if there's nothing new to add or nothing new to announce how is talking to the press anything more than a waste of taxpayer time and money?

Exactly. For 80% of Canadians and for 100% of Canadians who may potentially vote Tory, this "media-access/gag-order" is a non-story.

The only people who seem to care are the English-Canadian bricks-and-mortar media concentrated in Toronto, and the few people who are swayed by their hystrionic ravings.

Paul Wells gets it here ( apretty even-handed take, all things told)...

Wells gets what exactly? Does it matter a tinker's cuss what door what minister walks out of?

I felt sorry for Wells when I read that long post of his, and I feel sorry for you BD for linking to it. Do you realize how little thought ordinary people in this country devote to this kind of nonsense?

Harper will be judged according to what he does, not by what the "official" media thinks he does. Clearly, this PM is different, and he will get support in a different way.

[Black Dog]

Wells gets what exactly? Does it matter a tinker's cuss what door what minister walks out of?

Yes. Yes it does.

I felt sorry for Wells when I read that long post of his, and I feel sorry for you BD for linking to it. Do you realize how little thought ordinary people in this country devote to this kind of nonsense?

Well, I wouldn't expect the "ordinary people" to care, what with a new season of Canadian Idol just around the corner. They have their priorities, I have mine.

Harper will be judged according to what he does, not by what the "official" media thinks he does. Clearly, this PM is different, and he will get support in a different way.

Of course, you realize what a ridiculous statement that is. What Harper "does" is conveyed through the media. But don't worry: the press in Caanda are a complacent lot: they'll soon lern how to play the game the Harper way and we can get on with the business of government telling us what's important.

[Nocrap]

Wells gets what exactly? Does it matter a tinker's cuss what door what minister walks out of?

Yes. Yes it does.

I felt sorry for Wells when I read that long post of his, and I feel sorry for you BD for linking to it. Do you realize how little thought ordinary people in this country devote to this kind of nonsense?

Well, I wouldn't expect the "ordinary people" to care, what with a new season of Canadian Idol just around the corner. They have their priorities, I have mine.

Harper will be judged according to what he does, not by what the "official" media thinks he does. Clearly, this PM is different, and he will get support in a different way.

Of course, you realize what a ridiculous statement that is. What Harper "does" is conveyed through the media. But don't worry: the press in Caanda are a complacent lot: they'll soon lern how to play the game the Harper way and we can get on with the business of government telling us what's important.

Geoffrey said: "Since when is a government unaccountable when they don't have a press conference every 25 minutes". I don't need a press conference every 25 minutes, but when Mr. Harper is doing things that alarm us, he needs to EXPLAIN WHY!

First and foremost, why he won't let our elected MP's talk, when taxpayers pay them to do so.

Why he won't let the media keep us informed.

Why he still refuses to be accountable for Emerson, Fortier and O'Connor.

Why he refuses an open discussion on Afghanistan, but simply reworks a Bush Iraqi speech.

For a man who campaigned on accountability, ethics and transparency in government, he has shown none of these. Hiding himself away in his ivory castle with Mulroney and Flanagan and his other cronies, is simply not good enough. I don't want to know that Hill & Knowlton can write well crafted media bits or videotape (probably with paid actors since that's their usual MO) their spin on important events, I want to know what our elected officials have to say.

I agree that the Liberals were in office too long, and developed "a culture of entitlement"; but Canadians saw what can happen when we don't pay attention. We're paying attention now, and will not give Harper the same free reign. As a matter of fact, he told us many, many times that he doesn't want that.

He needs to practise what he preaches.