Monday, October 15, 2007

Ok, Fine, Bring Back the Sponsorship Program

Maybe it's just my imagination but...Wasn't Stephen Harper the one who wanted to restore openness, accountability and transparency to government? I suppose that I must be thinking of someone else. After all, Stephen Harper is the one who kicks people out of the party for representing the views of their constituents, on Google the keyword combo "Stephen Harper Gag Order" returns 131,000 hits. He has only, to date, made one single appearance at the National Press Theatre and now he wants to create an entirely new, entirely government controlled press center where the PMO would get to decide who was admitted and, reportedly, would control the cameras and decide which images made it out of the room - in addition to Harpers usual practice of "insisting that his staff decide which journalists pose questions.".

It's enough to make you long for the good old days when governments gave kickbacks to friendly ad agencies, but there was at least a free press to report on it.

No comments: