Propaganda knows no budget

I always love listening to some bleating Harper follower tell us how well they manage the country's tax dollars. I particularly enjoy it when they're standing there in front of me because I get to watch their eyes do everything but connect with mine. Mostly they shift their gaze down and to the left.

The latest example of abuse of your tax dollars and the Harper obsession with propagandizing is really no surprise. It is, after all, Harper.

Civil servants across Canada were ordered by the Harper government to document every single sign posted anywhere promoting the federal economic stimulus plan, The Canadian Press has learned.

They've spent countless hours tracking every one of more than 8,500 signs posted since last summer, when the urgent, weekly exercise was ordered by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic support arm of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office.

It continues to this day.

Of course, the Harperites will attempt to trivialize this or, worse, justify this enormous waste. They always do. Any complaint these "fiscal conservatives" ever had about the spending of previous governments sinks under the weight of the Harper government which knows no financial limit when it comes to Harper-promoting propaganda.

Steve V does a great take down of the Harper government fiscal behaviour.

And, while I can be certain that Harper's supporters will continue to bleat on about how Harper and his slimy little Harris-government refugee of a finance minister have performed some economic miracle we can continue to remind everyone that Harper and Flaherty have managed to run up the largest fiscal deficit of any Canadian federal government - ever.

Further, they were firmly on that route before any so-called economic action plan was hurriedly slapped together. Spending on the part of Harper and Flaherty was so out of control by 2008 that the federal government was well on its way to a fiscal deficit. Their "stimulus" package came at a timely moment and provided camouflage for an already executed mindless spending spree.

While Harper's office has the civil service wasting its time counting signs, you might want to be aware that every one of them represents only a percentage of the cost of the project it obscures from sight. Provincial governments, municipal governments and agencies were required to contribute a combined larger proportion of total funding than the federal government's input.

Does any sign say that? No.

The Harperites bullied their way onto construction projects by requiring exclusive signage - lest they deny funding altogether.

Harper propaganda.

The only thing missing was his picture and I am reasonably confident that when the design layout was happening, that idea didn't go by without some discussion.