HarperWatch

When Ken Breadner woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed to a monstrous citizen of Harper.

--with apologies to Franz Kafka

What was once the Government of Canada is now, by Prime Ministerial diktat to be referred to as "the Harper Government".

Tiny, incremental steps. Softee, softee catchee majority.

Such a trivial change in nomenclature this is. Easily dismissed. I mean, by media convention, you distinguish one government from another this way already, viz. "The Obama Administration", "The Martin government", "The Harper regime".

By media convention, you do this. Not by explicit order of the PM. In democracies, the general rule is that the government tends to refer to itself as being for the people. In this case, that would be "the people" of Canada. But this government is of, by, and for Stephen Harper.

What's next? Do we move the capital from Ottawa to Stephenville, NL? Do we tear down all the bridges spanning the Ottawa River and institute "Harper's Ferries"?

What is the purpose of this? As with most things Harper does, there's more than one. First, this rebranding suggests the government is firmly in control. To me, at least, it sounds very much like a majority government. When you call it "The Harper Government", it's easy to forget that it's really "The Harper-And-Whichever-Party(ies)-Agrees-With-Him-At-The-Moment Government".

Suggest something often enough, in suitably subtle ways, and it'll come true. Harper is within salivating distance of a majority already, for reasons that entirely escape me. And this scares me. Given the contempt he's shown for Parliament as the leader of a minority government, I shudder to think what shenanigans he'll get up to should that majority come to pass.

The other thing "Harper Government" does is concentrate the spotlight on Stephen Harper and nowhere else. That's exactly where he wants it. Not because he craves the spotlight--he may be a tad megalomaniacal, but he's not a diva about it--because he keeps himself rigidly under control at all times. If a Conservative Minister says something out of turn, or even if it's not cleared with the PMO first, odds are he or she'll be demoted or sacked outright. Hence you'll hear nary a peep about capital punishment, criminalization of abortion, the gutting of our social welfare system, or anything else that Harper would in his heart or hearts love to implement. Not until that majority, after which he's apt to claim a mandate from "the people". Because of our first-past-the-post electoral system, Harper's easily able to get his majority of seats without an actual majority of votes cast. Never forget that: Harper won't. "The people" will always and forever be only "the people who voted Conservative".

That's rule number one for aspiring dictators: reward your friends and punish your enemies...