One of the, erm, amusing directives to emanate from the Prime Minister’s Office has been an instruction that federal government bureaucrats, when reporting any new initiative in a press release or other document intended for public consumption, is to refer to the government as “Canada’s New Government” rather than the “the Government of Canada.” Several bureaucrats — and not a few Opposition politicians — have chafed at this instruction, believing it to be so much partisan Conservative propaganda.
Presumably, Johanne Gelinas, the Environment Commissioner and an independent officer of Parliament, would have been covered by this directive. But, here in the media lock-up, as I make my way through her six-volume indictment of federal government environmental initiatives, I have yet to find the phrase “Canada’s New Government” and have only found that old-fashioned, out-of-style phrase “The Government of Canada.”