Liberals don’t want to keep ‘Harping’ on the past

OTTAWA— Conservative MP Candice Bergen is angry that the government has had dozens of web pages from Stephen Harper’s days as prime minister deleted from Google search results, but the Liberals say it’s just a matter of keeping websites current.

“The prime minister’s website is not his own website to do with as he pleases, it belongs to the Canadian people,” Bergen said in the Commons on Thursday.

“It cannot just be changed at the whim of the Liberals.”

Documents tabled in the Commons in response to a written question from Bergen detail the deletion requests, showing that the Privy Council Office requests for deletion from Google began last Nov. 4, the day the Trudeau government took office. They continued into January. The Prime Minister’s Office called it a technical matter: public servants wanted the change so that searches produced the latest material.

The government said the Harper material was neither deleted nor destroyed and remains available.

“All of the previous prime minister’s archived web content can be accessed via Library and Archives Canada along with other archived government materials,” Treasury Board President Scott Brison told the Commons.

“Canadians expect government websites to reflect the most up-todate information and accurate information when they are searching on these sites.”

No one wants Harper forgotten, Brison said, prompting guffaws of laughter from the Liberal benches.

“Our government hopes that the memory of the former Conservative prime minister lives in the minds of Canadians for a very long time.”

Google said in a statement it just wants to ensure that its searches reflect the contents of websites.