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 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Great moments in communications

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 10:44am - 68 Comments

The Privy Council Office explains that there’s been no “formal directive” to rebrand everything the “Harper Government.”

“The distinction that needs to be made here is the word ‘directive’ — a directive, as opposed to, you know, in a particular case departments may have used the words ‘Harper Government,’” said Raymond Rivet, a PCO spokesman…

Civil servants from four departments told The Canadian Press last week they’ve recently been instructed to use the new terminology. “If a department has told you they’ve got direction from ‘the Centre’ to use a message or certain wording or do something, I mean, that would be normal, would it not?” Rivet said. “Part of the role of PCO and PMO in the communications sphere is to co-ordinate government communications, so I imagine they get direction on a variety of things. So that’s not in opposition to somebody telling you that there’s no formal directive.”

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  • bennji1977

    huh?

  • madeyoulook

    Part of the role of PCO and PMO in the communications sphere is to co-ordinate government communications, so I imagine they get direction on a variety of things. So that’s not in opposition to somebody telling you that there’s no formal directive.

    "So that’s not in opposition to somebody telling you that there’s no formal directive.” This guy is in communications? With a triple-negative sentence like that? Yeesh.

    • gottabesaid

      You don't not have a good point, myl.

      • madeyoulook

        That's not unlike you to avoid hiding a negative point from someone you'd rather not hear it, GBS. Uh, I think.

        • ZestyMordant

          ^Not

        • gottabesaid

          Contrary to opposite objections, you can't not disagree.

          • Crit_Reasoning

            It isn't impossible to avoid contradicting oneself when one communicates non-linearly.

          • Jenn_

            That was really funny.

            However, communications guys stay up nights thinking about how to be just as unclear as this thread. That's why they make the big bucks! He probably got a bonus for the triple negative sentence.

          • madeyoulook

            Contrary to opposite objections, you can't not disagree.

            Oh I can't, can't I?

          • gottabesaid

            I'm not dissuading you from not doing anything, and I'm not persuading you from doing nothing.

          • madeyoulook

            Oh no you weren't!

  • gottabesaid

    Really, enough of the BS. Clearly, someone has told the rest of the civil service to use 'Harper Government'. Stand by the decision or reverse the decision… but don't try and tell us that the decision hasn't been made. It's like KAIROS all over again: We cancelled their funding because they were 'anti-Israel.' No, we cancelled their funding because it didn't fit CIDA guidelines. No, we cancelled it because we made the decision to cancel it. Well WTF?

    Show some friggin' backbone and stop trying to baffle us with bullsh*t.

    • MostlyCivil

      I think they're using the "Nobody sent out a memo with DIRECTIVE!! stamped on it, so it's not a directive" argument.

      That old classic.

      • gottabesaid

        No, it's like this.

        I decide to repaint the living room. My wife comes home and sees my work.

        "Was it your idea to repaint the living room searsucker blue?" she asks.

        "Well, uh, dear, do you think it was a good idea?"

        "No, it looks like a dog's a**."

        "Well, then, it was your mother's idea."

        It's like that. Situational accountability. I know it well.

  • NoNameCS

    Note to my kids: if you ever try and convince me you did not commit an act despite the fact that I and a stadium full of people will have seen you commit said act, I will disown you. On the upside, you'll be ripe for a communications job with the PCO.

  • edeast

    Ok, even I'm starting to get pissed. Soudas reiterated in an email that the PMO has "issued no 'directive' of the type referred to and then directed inquiries to the PCO.

    • Dave

      What took you so long?

  • ZestyMordant

    In summary, there is direction but no directive.

    • http://dougsamu.wordpress.com dougrogers

      There is verb but no noun. There is action but no object. There is a pen, but there is no piece of paper. In short, no one wrote it down, so it doesn't exist. Transparent government.

    • non-partisan

      Yes. Just as there are meetings but no minutes.

  • Loraine Lamontagne

    By the way, I'm an old woman, not as young and tech-savvy as most of you here, but I did go on gc.ca and typed in

    Harper government – there were 1124 results for 2009

    Chrétien government, and found the following results:

    2004 (12)
    2003 (11)
    2002 (36)
    2001 (12)

    • http://dougsamu.wordpress.com dougrogers

      Good work, but you are merely showing that the Liberals did it, so it's okay.

      • Loraine Lamontagne

        Dimitri Soudas in a letter to Le Devoir this morning invited readers to check it out.

        Wrote Soudas: "Une simple vérification d'archives en ligne montre que les termes «gouvernement Chrétien», «gouvernement Martin» et autres variantes similaires sont utilisés librement depuis bien des années, tant au Canada que dans d'autres pays du Commonwealth."

        And the results clearly show that it's a lot more common with this government thant it was with Chrétien's. I would even say that under Chrétien it was the exception, not the rule. If we are to believe those who speak anonymously, and I don't mean the PMO here, we're about to see much more Harper Government than we have these past five years.

        • former_ADB

          So Mr. Soudas was lying?

          • briguyhfx

            His mouth was moving.

          • MostlyCivil

            His legs move, too. That's why that subpeona never found him.

      • former_ADB

        No she's not look below at the results using the correctly defined search terms.
        I ran "Martin government" (2004-2006) and found 2 instances.

        • Loraine Lamontagne

          Mr. Soudasis misleading readers when he writes in French that these terms were "utilisés librement" – and in English it comes as " similar variations have been used freely by various governments for many years" in the G&M.

          Obviously it was not used freely when Chrétien was PM, with three occurences in two years while it is used freely under Stephen Harper with 124 occurences so far in 2011 – and we're March 8th!!

      • Crit_Reasoning

        Isn't that always the case? :) The Liberals used the phrase "Harper Government" on their own website 5,210 times. I think they may have seen the phrase as a pejorative.

        • http://dougsamu.wordpress.com dougrogers

          No, really?cartoon life dougsamu.wordpress.com

        • E_B_

          I am sure they do see it as a pejorative. However, can we make a distinction?

          I would say that under no circumstances should an official Government of Canada document/communication/whatever be released that identifies said communication as coming from the "Harper Government", "Chretien Government", "Crit_Reasoning Government", or any other persons name.

          If the Conservatives want to use it in an unofficial way; no problem. They can shout it 'til the cows come home if they want.

          • Crit_Reasoning

            Sure, why not? Since we're talking about a few hundred news releases at most, it wouldn't even be hard to change.

          • D.D.S

            How about this? http://twitpic.com/47jrst
            (Thanks

          • Out There

            Precisely. If the Conservatives want to use "Harper Government" on their own website and in their own communications – then, sure, if that's what they want.

            But "Harper Government" is not an acceptable term for use on an official government website.

  • Al O'Wishes

    Can we please just go one week without someone in the PMO/PCO having to demonstrate their expert hair-splitting abilities? Besides, we all know the only reason this is not being called an "edict" is because King Stephen doesn't have his crown. Yet. (I fully expect it to be a part of the budget.)

    • lgarvin

      Actually, I think it might have to do with a Point of Order that was raised in the house yesterday. Question Period geeks will know that it is considered "unparliamentary" to refer to MPs by their proper names in the House of Commons. MPs are referred to by their riding: "The Member for _______-________ " and accidently "naming" a member is frowned upon. In fact it's one of the few things that will get you an immediate rebuke from the Speaker.

      A Liberal Member – I forget who – got up yesterday and asked the Speaker to rule on whether or not it was acceptable parliamentary language to refer to the "H______ Government" within the House of Commons, or would it be necessary to have a secret code word for the use of MPs in Parliament? It was a clever way to underline the absurdity of the Harper government's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

      • McC_

        well played Liberal Member Whose Name Escapes at the Moment, well played indeed.

        • MostlyCivil

          They're now using "The "H" word" when they refer to it, so as not to displease the speaker.

  • Loraine Lamontagne

    As I said, I'm not tech-savvy, so I went back and did the search putting the words Harper Government marks, and Chretien Government in quotation marks:

    For Harper Government:
    2011 (124)
    2010 (59)
    2009 (48)

    For Chrétien
    2003 (1)
    2002 (2)

    • former_ADB

      Brilliant, thank you.

    • tedbetts

      Someone in the media did this too and noted that the use of "the Chretien government" was always only a quotation from someone somewhere in a document that was always properly labelled as coming from "The Government of Canada". There was no mistaking things there or breach of Treasury Board rules.

      By contrast, what Harper is now doing is actually labelling press releases and government documents as being issued by this new entity called "The Harper Government".

    • Guest

      Try Mcguinty Government at the Ontario government website.__Same outrage? Both are wrong!

      • Guest

        "McGuinty Government" at search.gov.on.ca__news releases – 8209
        Why thumbs down for pointing out something that most seem to have a problem with?

    • non-partisan

      It should be VERY difficult to find reference of any kind to any government before the current one. The web sites are regularly updated – they are meant to reflect present information, generally not past history. One of the first things that happens when the government changes is that the new guys scrub the websites of any reference to the old guys.

      You don’t want someone Googling “Government of Canada” and finding reference to “Prime Minister Chretien.” One, its inaccurate; two, from a partisan comms perspective, you don’t want to give the other side any credit.

      • Loraine Lamontagne

        Then why is Dimitri Soudas inviting us to do so?

      • former_ADB

        You are quite wrong when you say that it is quite difficult to find references in any but the current government. The goc.ca web-site links to many documents from that period.

        But you may have a point about differences in archiving practice and web-publication over the period 2000-2011.

        I searched for the term "news release" (the term press release was used between 10 and 100 times less in any of the years I checked).

        Here are the results:

        Instances of “news release” in documents.
        2000 0
        200 176
        2002 1314
        2003 189
        2004 375
        2005 626
        2006 576
        2007 1607
        2008 674
        2009 1258
        2010 2019
        2011 1236

        Some questions and observations:

        Were there really no "news releases" in 2000 or does the zero just indicate less or 'different-type' web-use by the Government at that time?

        Is the growth in “new release” numbers with year,
        i) a function of archiving practice or
        ii) increasing “spin”?

        If i) then why does the count for 2008 resemble 2006, while that for 2007 is significantly higher?

        Has there been a huge increase in media messaging in the last 18 months?

        These data suggest that there has.

      • brooster2

        "You don't want someone Googling "Government of Canada" and finding reference to "Prime Minister Chretien."

        But it could happen and why not? If, as you say, one uses Google (rather than a proprietary government search engine), it could turn up a current government document referencing a previous prime minister, or a Government of Canada Archives item from the term of a previous prime minister, or any media item discussing the Government of Canada and Prime Minister Chretian in an historical context. (Come to think of it, even a proprietary government search engine could legitimately produce items from the first two examples I just cited).

        However, I do concur that it would be inappropriate for a government website search engine to generate a current government document incorrectly referring to a previous prime minister as if he were the incumbent.

    • Merrill S

      Well there you have it. The Liberals did it first.

  • tedbetts

    They got their ad campaign ideas from the Republicans, but they got their spin from Bill Clinton.

    If giving instructions and directions to re-label "The Government of Canada" as "The Harper Regime Government" is not a "directive", then we really are debating the meaning of the word "is".

    • brooster2

      Ah, but in this case they did not have sex with that woman.

      • MostlyCivil

        Well, to be fair, Tony has problems meeting girls.

  • Amateur Hour

    Down is up and up is down at the PCO.

    They're climbing down now.

  • madeyoulook

    C'mon everyone. Give the PR lackeys a break. After all, even though "Not-Ignatieff Government" focus-grouped 8 to 15 percentage points better than "Harper Government" in eleven out of twelve markets, the folks in the PMO thought that might be going too far.

    • gottabesaid

      They were going to go with the 'Not-Ignatieff Government', but in the last month or so, for some reason the word 'not' suddenly became a loaded word.

      Thanks a lot, Bev Oda.

      • madeyoulook

        Keep up, GBS. It wasn't Bev. It was somebody else. And no, we don't know who else it was…

        • gottabesaid

          Wait a sec, aren't ministers responsible for everything that goes on under their watch? OH WAIT, that only counts when good stuff happens. My bad.

          • LdKitchenersOwn

            That doesn't only count when good stuff happens, it also counts when staffers are being called to testify.

      • Mike T.

        YOu mean "Thanks a NOT"

  • McC_

    I don't know why you're attracting so many thumbs down, those are all perfectly crommulent reasons.

  • catherine

    One can simply google "Harper Government" for the domain .gc.ca to see all the government offices that have fallen for this directive.

    It's not a good idea to tie the Government of Canada to the name of one Canadian, so substituting "Harper Regime" should satisfy Harper while keeping the naming integrity of our Government.

  • Halo_Override

    [youtube RbUvFCj_qqo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbUvFCj_qqo youtube]

  • Holly Stick

    Yes, it was mostly a white background with red and black lettering I think, much better looking than the ugly crowded Conservative version. And the Conservatives have plastered Harper's photos all over the website.

  • wellwell

    We should hire unemployed Kremlinologists from the Soviet era to interpret "Harper Government" communications.

  • wilson

    'Civil servants from four departments told The Canadian Press'

    4 departments?
    Oh, that's why CBC had to apologize for charactorizing 'the directive' as ALL departments.
    It was not true.

    And the media non-stop use of the term 'Harper Government', for 5 years, is the reason this is a fail.

    Secondly, differentiating between policy/initiatives of previous administrations (Trudeau,Mulroney,Chretien) is the norm.

    This faux scandal is a fail.
    Won't even light up the room, let alone ignite voter interest on fire.

    • MostlyCivil

      Never sure it's a scandal till you show up. Thanks for the confirmation.

  • former_ADB

    OK just ran the same test. I don't think you used the "exact" text match so the numbers above are off.
    This is what I find
    Jan 2000-Dec 2004: Instances of "Chrétien government" = 3 (including 1 document, a speech by David Anderson, that only contains the phrase: "I am pleased to bring the greetings of Prime Minister Chrétien and the Government of Canada"
    Jan 2004-Dec 2006: Instances of "Martin government" = 2 (of which 1 is false hit)

    Jan 2010-Dec2010: Instances of "Harper government" = 59

    I'm not going check all these 59 articles so it's possible that the search program is including some errors, but the first 10 did not.

  • TimesArrow

    Let there be light!!…Lord God.

    Er…did you mean let in the declarative sense of the word or was it more passive? What i mean to say is was that a directive or merely a passive direction for light?…the late DS.

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