The Canadian left is miffed about Prime Minister Stephen Harper鈥檚 newly painted jet.
The government鈥檚 CC-150 Polaris recently received a new paint job as part of its scheduled six-year maintenance and upgrades. The new design and subsequent paint job added an extra $50,000 to the bill, and what鈥檚 even worse, according to detractors, are that the colours chosen were red, white and blue.
Hardly patriotic, argue the prime minister鈥檚 critics.
The decision to give the plane a more exciting exterior ran contrary to the advice of Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who clearly stated that the plane should stay grey so that it could continue to function as a military plane. It鈥檚 often used to transport military equipment and personnel.
Harper鈥檚 defenders are arguing that the new paint job is perfectly patriotic. It鈥檚 reminiscent of the Snowbirds鈥� colouring, and those who call it unpatriotic are simply looking for an excuse to find fault with the PM.
Perhaps, but the Snowbirds are primarily white and red, with only a dash of blue along the sides, while the Polaris鈥檚 entire undercarriage is blue, with only a thin lateral sweep of red. It sort of looks like it鈥檚 lost at sea.
Nit-picky though it seems to some, blue is, well, the Conservatives鈥� colour. It certainly isn鈥檛 sa国际传媒鈥檚.
Moreover, the red, white and blue colour scheme is representative of so many countries that are not our own (including that really big, really powerful one just down south) that it seems strange to use it for our national aircraft, especially as Harper is often accused of embracing the more partisan American style of politics that most MPs disavow (publicly, at least).
Blue is Conservative, not Canadian, and the fact that blue features so heavily in the new design is of a piece with this government鈥檚 continued blurring of the lines between party and government.
In response, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said pointedly that 鈥渨hen we [the NDP] form government in 2015 we will not be painting that plane orange.鈥� Presumably this is not simply because that would give the jet a sort of 鈥渢ropical sunset鈥� feel.
Again, it might seem pedantic or even trivial to be harping on such small symbolic details, but if our government wants to insist upon the integrity of our national symbols, as it does every time it uses a flag, a maple leaf, a crest or the word 鈥淩oyal鈥� to evoke the might and majesty of our country, then it鈥檚 not too much to suggest that it鈥檚 proper to maintain symbolic continuity, and keep the Conservative colours out of it.
But the problem isn鈥檛 that this is obviously a partisan decision 鈥� the problem is that it so obviously could be interpreted as a partisan decision, and nobody in the Conservative decision-making process stepped up to say: 鈥淗mm, this could look bad.鈥� I鈥檇 go so far as to say that they probably didn鈥檛 care.
It鈥檚 especially bad timing for the jet, since we鈥檙e receiving more and more details about the special discretionary fund in the Prime Minister鈥檚 Office that may be linked to Senator Mike Duffy鈥檚 scandal. It鈥檚 harder to defend the decision as nonpartisan when the PMO is being accused of using government money for non-governmental purposes.
Over the years, the federal Conservatives 鈥� and Harper in particular 鈥� have accrued a significant amount of criticism about their secretive and partisan habits: Being uncooperative and uncommunicative in Parliament, consolidating financial power in the PMO, running American-style attack ads during elections and insisting that civil servants call it the 鈥淗arper government鈥� rather than the Government of sa国际传媒.
These are all indications of a specific style of government that many Canadians, including me, take issue with.
While the issue of the jet might seem like a small detail, or even a distraction in the face of larger and more important issues, it fits the regular pattern of this government鈥檚 failure to examine how its behaviour is perceived by average Canadians. I think the word I鈥檓 going for here is arrogance.
The paint job was but a small part of the plane鈥檚 overhaul, and the plane is but a small part of the larger pattern of instances where the Conservatives have blurred the line between government and party, but symbolically, it matters.
It鈥檚 yet another instance in which the Harper government has shown itself to be utterly uninterested in how self-serving its behaviour appears.
