How has information control evolved under Harper?
It’s part corporate news management and part resentment among Conservatives of the old Reform Party of what they see as an elite press.

What is corporate news management?
It’s not doing face-to-face interviews and not being open with information, over-managing the flow of information from government to the people and clamping down on the number of people who have access to the media. Everything is massaged and planned and manipulated. In many cases, people who want to know what government’s doing — media, MPs, NGOs, scientists, ordinary citizens — never really find out.

So your theory is Reform and the other pre-Conservative incarnations were upset about news coverage?
They thought it was unfair and patronizing in a lot of cases.

Was it?
Sometimes, but they didn’t understand how government worked. They brought a lot of prejudices to Ottawa and tried to make them fit. They saw the public service as an enemy and the Christian fundamentalists among them saw science as a left-wing enemy wanting to shut down the oil industry with bogus climate change science. They were going to open up government and restore democracy but Harper’s Accountability Act turned into a bad joke.

Why?
It became easier for them. It was a lot simpler to shut down information coming from caucus and ministers and government experts. They also wanted to change the story of Canada from what they saw as a Central Canadian narrative to a more western, more militarist, less peacekeeping — a more heroic version of Canadian history and re-make the way Canadians think about their own country. And they have done a fairly good job.

If that’s the case, what do they get out of it politically?
They replace an old Liberal establishment with a new Conservative establishment. They want to replace the old Liberal myths and replace them with Conservative myths. So the Liberal myth of Pierre Trudeau, the Constitution and Charter of Rights is replaced by Vimy Ridge and Canada punching above its weight, with the Conservatives as the political arm. It would be a Tory government of a new Tory Canada. It could keep them in power for a long time if they pull it off.
If the Liberals or NDP were running the government, would they be any less controlling?
Not unless Canadians make it clear that it is part of their mandate. How much of their government do Canadians want done in secret? How weak do they want Parliament to be? It’s about our democracy. The House of Commons barely functions now and it’s the only national democratic institution we have. The system now works as an elected dictatorship, and I’m not sure how easy it will be to change that back. What’s needed is for politicians to trust people to decide things for themselves instead of manipulating them.
What do you see as the most egregious aspect of the Harper government’s control over information?
Any message control that limits the ability of individual MPs to function — the unprecedented amount of party control over MPs, the weakening of (Commons) committees and the deliberate derailing of committee work. And the hammering away at the Parliamentary budget officer and efforts to de-legitimize the Auditor General. When the prime minister’s office is deciding which choices to make, there isn’t any democracy any more.

Do Canadians care?
When they clue in but people are so disconnected from government. Sometimes I think the veneer of democracy in this country is very thin because we are all used to being ruled by one elite or the other.

In other words, you’re saying Canadians are complacent.
We’ve had a free ride in the sweep of history. We’ve slowly developed what we needed to get by. When you have 30 million people living on top of one of the greatest resource areas of the world, it doesn’t take many brains to get rich off it.

We’re heading into an election year. How is this entire situation going to manifest itself?
There is starting to be a bit of a backlash over the way the government has cracked down on information. People don’t see it as some big thing but rather as single issues — treatment of veterans, shutting down environmental scientists. But the whole country isn’t up in arms, and I think Stephen Harper has a good chance of winning the election, at least with a minority. He is a very effective campaigner. I write about their propaganda machine with some respect because it has always served them very well during election campaigns.

Harper, the message and Canadian democracy

From Mark Bourrie new book, Kill The Messengers: Stephen Harper’s Assault on Your Right to Know.