All politics, all the time for Harper et al.

OTTAWA— Rumour has it that many people in this Canadian government carry two smartphone devices — one to do the business of the nation, and the other to have more candid chats about personal and political matters.

And that’s an excellent idea. Let’s encourage the people running this government to keep us, the citizens, out of their personal or political power struggles.

International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino made the mistake of dragging us into his political skirmishes when a letter he penned against the NDP appeared on the government website of the Canadian International Development Association.

“Dear NDP: CIDA Does Not Need Your Economic Advice,” the headline on the letter read.

That’s nice. Is there anyone else the government would like to single out as unhelpful to the nation? Perhaps someone who is disputing his or her 2012 tax assessment?

Chances are, if you’ve clicked on the CIDA website, you were trying to find out what the government was doing to assist people abroad and you’re not all that interested in the minister’s attempts to get his party re-elected in 2015.

In all fairness, we can probably guess that Fantino didn’t write the letter and that he didn’t post it on the web either. The letter was quickly pulled from the website after it came to media notice.

But it’s actually more worrying that no alarm bells rang — among political staff or the bureaucracy — when the antiNDP rant was posted online, as well as when a similar harangue was posted on CIDA’s website against the Liberal MP for Scarborough-Guildwood, John McKay.

“The previous Liberal government, of which Mr. McKay was a member, was one that enjoyed making grand announcements concerning international aid,” said the letter, posted on on Dec. 17. “It had endless priorities, strategies and plans. Results, however, were harder to come by.”

Canada is not a one-party state and doesn’t have the climate to be a banana republic.

So we have to keep reminding ourselves: this isn’t the “Harper government.” It’s our government.

Those cheques the government is sending out in whatever “action-plan” iteration, no matter what logo is emblazoned on them, don’t come from the Conservative party. The money comes from people who voted Liberal, NDP, Conservative, Green or not at all.

The Fantino letters got a lot of socialmedia attention this week because they were such a blatant example of a constant refrain in the governing culture here since 2006. This seems to be a state that looks favourably only on those who support the party in power.

The Assembly of First Nations, duly elected members of the Bloc Québécois, Sean Bruyea, an advocate for military veterans — all have been made targets of attack campaigns plotted out in the backrooms of government, not the Conservative party. (Bruyea got an apology for the government’s attackmachine intrusion into his private affairs.)

Just last week, a seemingly sensible person on Twitter said Harper had done a good job of “marginalizing” Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, whose liquid-diet protest has proved problematic for the government.

Maybe naively, or over-earnestly, I thought it should be pointed out: Harper is prime minister. It’s not his job to put any citizen on the margins. That’s why he’s paid the big bucks, to watch out for everyone in the federation.

Disturbingly, Harper hasn’t used that office to publicly discourage the hate and ridicule some of his supporters are sending in a fellow citizen’s direction.

A trillion years ago, opposition MPs were invited to attend announcements when the government was handing out public money. The idea was that the locally elected representative should be there to demonstrate that Canada’s democracy, not the political party in power, was responsible for the country’s benevolence.

Now, the “Harper government” has instituted a system in which local Conservatives act as shadow MPs in opposition-held ridings, so that if you’re looking around for someone to help you with an immigration matter or your employment-insurance claims, you are sent a clear message that politics trumps democracy every time.

Citizens need to trust their government. They need to know that the powers that be — you know, the folks we trust with our tax returns and personal information — aren’t seeing us as potential enemies, especially on matters of freedom of thought or expression.

But don’t take my word for it. Have a look at what Harper himself said, in the flush of victory on May 2, 2011, when he won his coveted majority with fewer than 40 per cent of the vote. In the true spirit of a prime minister, not merely a Conservative leader, he spoke to the other 60 per cent:

“For our part, we are intensely aware that we are and we must be the government of all Canadians, including those who did not vote for us.”

It would be good to see that on the CIDA website.