How about we just call it the harper Service of Canada™?

Why not since: well researched advice by public servants who make recommendations on what’s best for the public are constantly overridden by harper’s political bag boys; public service resources are used forpolitical partisan endeavours; communications to the public are controlledby harper; communications to the public are not intended to inform the public of reality but rather are micro-managed by harper to avoid embarrassing him  and his own; non-partisan appointments are becoming obsolete;  and, public servants are forced to attend partisan functions for harper’s drones who are friendless...

The master strategist isn’t just redefining Canadian identity, he’s redefining our rights and the accountability of our public service – something created as a non-partisan body to serve us without political interference.

But we’ll leave the word “Canada” in there since Canadians are the ones footing the bill for the harper Service.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say public servants are harper servants...yet.  It’ll take a little while – but no as long as one might expect – for the pressure from the harper appointees and those they squeeze near the top to filter down to the bulk of public servants who still believe in their mandates of serving the public honestly and in a non-partisan fashion.

But as harper takes over more control through bullying and ignoring legislation of what is supposed to be an independent body as our service, the very concept of independence will disappear from documents, speeches, communications, internal meetings until public servants forget they were once public servants and go about their jobs believing and never questioning that they are political servants.

And the public?  Who will be looking out for us?

No one.

Last week, the Citizen reported DND will spend more than $600 million on preparing the Nortel site to be its main location in Ottawa...on top of the $208 million the government spent to purchase the Carling Avenue campus... the documents show DND officials were worried last year about how the renovation costs would be perceived. “Media, parliamentarians and Canadians will be focused on the cost to taxpayers for the acquisition of the Campus and the subsequent retro-fit costs,” noted a DND strategy document.

Such concerns were solved when Deputy Minister Robert Fonberg stepped in. Fonberg’s assistant wrote that the deputy minister was concerned about telling the public about the cost. According to an email, Fonberg asked, “Why are we using the $623m(illion) fit up cost? It is without context and will be a lightning rod!”  The cost was removed from public documents about the Nortel purchase.

Minimizing risk to the Conservative government about issues that might raise questions has become a hallmark of federal communications strategies, say critics.