Kill The Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on Your Right to Know

by Mark Bourrie

Ottawa has become a place where the nation’s business is done in secret, and access to information--the lifeblood of democracy in Canada--is under attack.

It’s being lost to an army of lobbyists and public-relations flacks who help set the political agenda and decide what you get to know. It’s losing its struggle against a prime minister and a government that continue to delegitimize the media’s role in the political system. The public’s right to know has been undermined by a government that effectively killed Statistics Canada, fired hundreds of scientists and statisticians, gutted Library and Archives Canada and turned freedom of information rules into a joke. Facts, it would seem, are no longer important.

In Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on Your Right to Know, Mark Bourrie exposes how trends have conspired to simultaneously silence the Canadian media and elect an anti-intellectual government determined to conduct business in private. Drawing evidence from multiple cases and examples, Bourrie demonstrates how budget cuts have been used to suppress the collection of facts that embarrass the government’s position or undermine its ideologically based decision-making. Perhaps most importantly, Bourrie gives advice on how to take back your right to be informed and to be heard.

Kill the Messengers is not just a collection of evidence bemoaning the current state of the Canadian media, it is a call to arms for informed citizens to become active participants in the democratic process. It is a book all Canadians are entitled to read--and now, they’ll get the chance.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Canada, History, Audiobook

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 19, 2015

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm...mixed feelings here. Partly because I'm comparing it to something else.

Mark Bourrie has a unified theme here: the decline of democratic institutions. And he keeps coming back to it enough to hold the thing together. Though for many middle chapters, it's more so in passing while he recounts some Harper government's favourites. The long-form census. Officers of Parliament. Advertising.

But the whole book is redeemed by the superb opening chapters on the self-evisceration of Canadian media stretching back many decades, and acknowledgment of Harper's place in a long evolution of Canadian Prime Ministers and politicians. Yes, Harper is the latest, meanest, control-freakiest mini-autocrat in a string of them, but there have been a string of them. Trudeau openly detested the press. And Chretien was a gutter-fighting petit gars. Nor was there a golden-age of media. And it's unlikely any modern party and leader will form a fully open, transparent, accountably government. The temptations of the levers of power are just too great.

It's up to citizens.

Also on Twitter and Tumblr.

[Linwood Barclay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Bourrie's thorough examination of how Stephen Harper keeps the Canadian voter from knowing what the hell is going on, how it muzzles government scientists and everyone else in the civil service, should infuriate everyone who has even the slightest regard for democracy, transparency and open government. The book is also an indictment of a lazy media. Harper has gotten away with a lot because the media has allowed it to happen. The book is wonderfully written. Breezy, very funny at times, but ultimately maddening. I hope everyone who plans to vote in the 2015 federal election ion Canada reads it.

[Malcolm Pellettier · Rating 4 out of 5]

the banality of evil, the sweater vest edition.

[Stephanie Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Went into this knowing Stephen Harper was kind of the worst but I now understand that he’s truly the worst.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that should be read by all Canadians. Sadly, it will probably only be read by those who already know and agree with the author. It provides a great deal of information of how the Harper Government has ruled and changed Canada. It discusses the many ways in which information has been suppressed through the elimination of the long form census, muzzling of journalists, scientists, librarians and archivists. It is the first time I have seen all of the changes and decisions made by this government together. I was shocked and horrified by the amount of money spent to remember the War of 1812 and the attempts to change history and slightly amused to discover that I can write an Conservative MP and receive a poster of the Queen for free. I wish Canadians would read this book so they can truly make an informed decision when they vote in 2015.

[John Ison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit I struggled at times with this book. The sections dealing with the decline of an independent, critical press in Canada was a bit laborious and I'm not sure what he hopes will happen to fix it.

However, the sections dealing with the suppression of: information, research, criticism, facts, science, voting and independent thought were just frightening. I see a Prime Minister and a party where absolute control is almost pathological. Harper stops at nothing: journalists, MP's, watchdogs, experts, even judges are all targets for intimidation, ridicule, firing, censorship, and character assassination.

I thought the Chretien Liberals were the ultimate in hypocrisy. Ha! They were pikers!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

An outstanding book on how the Harper government is destroying democracy. Firing scientists, librarians, archivists, whistleblowers, etc will only inflame the public. While Harper ran on open government his current government is one of the most closed ever. We need more authors who will tell it like it really is so that we can fight government corruption and lack,of openness.

[James Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - should indeed be read by all Canadians and those worried about the decline of democracy everywhere.

[Rob Tripp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough catalogue of the Harper era cone of silence attitude that now pervades federal politics and has poisoned the public service.

[Mary Ripley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lively rant on Harper government disrespect for media and democracy

[Pieter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, should be read by every Canadian citizen who still believes in democracy.

[rabble.ca]

http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/0...

Review by Amira Elghawaby

If the state of Canada's democracy doesn't already reduce you to tears, it will once you get your hands on Mark Bourrie's latest book, Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on Your Right to Know. This book would be worth the time under any circumstances; in an election year, it's absolutely essential reading.

Bourrie, a journalist and historian specializing in military, media, and propaganda, is as thorough as he is focused in his meticulous analysis of the Conservative Party's tightening hold on information and its impact on our institutions.

Bourrie starts off where many authors often do when scrutinizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's raison d'être: making Canada unrecognizable. This entails ensuring Canadians see the country "in a different light: as an energy and resource superpower instead of a country of factories and businesses, as 'warrior nation' instead of a peacekeeper, as an Arctic nation instead of clusters of cities along the American border, as a country of self-reliant entrepreneurs instead of a nation that shares among its people and its regions."

We know all this. But the genius in this tome is how carefully the author catalogues and analyzes the ways in which Harper has systematically attacked Canada's democratic institutions and the media to bring about this drastic transformation. From avoiding the parliamentary press corps, to doing away with facts and science, to reshaping the country's history and perceptions of itself, Bourrie chronicles just how Harper has been able to do the unimaginable -- and get away with it.

Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/0...

[Raimo Wirkkala · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering, damning and oh-so-necessary indictment of the tactics, strategies and governing philosophy of the Harper Conservatives. Bourrie systematically and dispassionately (for the most part) makes his case, saving his passion for his closing argument. This book is an immediate service to all those who believe in true democracy and, in the longer term, it is a service to history.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned. I have no idea how to rate this book. I agree with the content and I'm interested in the topic, but the writing....yeesh...nice to see mention in Chapter 7 about Environment Canada and also a few pages about Library and Archives Canada. Just not readable for me, which is a shame.

[August Bourré · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite good. An excellent takedown that doesn't stump for any of the opposition parties, rightly refusing to let them off the hook for their own nonsense. Research-heavy but never dry. A must if you want to understand the modus operandi of our current government.

[Kenny Creeper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Bourrie gives a no holds barred look into the Canadian media and the politics seeking to control it. Consider this another must read.

[Carol A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chilling portrayal of the Harper government and Harper himself and his relationship with the press in Canada, as well as his agenda in suppressing information...