Phendrana Drifts

It is too bad I didn't clip or save the story, because I can't find an online copy anywhere. Nevertheless, over the past week or so, the Government of Alberta's Public Affiars Bureau (PAB) has come under fire for being, well, partisan. The PAB, at least as far as I can tell, is about 130 people who work on the overall communications and messages the Government of Alberta sends out. Every department has their own communications shop to be sure, but the PAB is a coordinating and strategic body that does a lot of things. It thinks about when a good news story should go out to the public for example. Or what communications message should go out from the government in response to a crisis. Political stuff. Partisan? Well, that depends. I certainly subscribe to the idea that politicians don't just govern, the run for elections. As the fictional President Bartlett said in the West Wing:

Make no mistake, I certainly don't want to see all public employees working their darndest to re-elect the government in power. But when it comes to the communications arm of a government, we demand a government that communicates its intent to the governed. We demand a government that is accountable to our questions. We demand a not simply to only be heard, but also to be led. You can't do that without communications staff. Well you could, but communicating to 3,000,000 takes a lot out of people. Of course, it is unfair to those parties who aren't the government. I'm sure the Liberal Opposition for example would love 100 people working solely to communicate the Opposition message to Albertans. I don't have a good answer, and I do believe in a healthy democracy (which requires a opposition party and alternative to the government of the day). That said, I do believe that the party that wins gets to govern. And spend public money. And yes, communicate their messages to the governed population. And if nothing else, what messages would a non-partisan PAB talk about? And who would be accountable for those messages? At least now, I know that the messages come from an elected government.

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