AFTER the number of election campaigns Stephen Harper has been through, you would think he understood that the people of Canada are his boss, not the other way around. But we have to wonder if Harper is forgetting who pays his salary after two revelations this week.
According to emails unearthed by Canadian Press, the prime minister's office has been pressuring appalled civil servants to remove the words "Government of Canada" from their documents and replace them with "Harper Government."
This is an astonishing, totally unnecessary exercise in arrogance. To equate our federal government with one man is the stuff of absolute monarchies, not a modern democracy. What's more, the prime minister's spokesman consistently lied that the rebranding was taking place.
On Friday, we learned that Defence Minister Peter MacKay really did summon a military search-and-rescue helicopter away from its duties last year to give him a ride home from his vacation - at roughly $32,000 per hour. Apparently the $47,000 of your money MacKay spent on transportation in 2010 wasn't enough. MacKay also shamelessly lied about the purpose of the flight, claiming it was a SAR demonstration, something that military officers flatly deny.
The years of irresistible majority government to come will be a test of the Conservatives' discipline and integrity. But for a party that once claimed to be the antidote to years of entrenched Liberal entitlement, it sure hasn't taken long for the Tories to get comfortable using your property as their own.
