OTTAWA — The genesis of the Harper government's "Strong Proud Free" slogan currently bombarding Canadian television viewers is considered a cabinet confidence and will be hidden from public scrutiny for 20 years.
A request by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, seeking any background rationale for the tagline that punctuates all the latest taxpayer-funded advertising, has come up empty.
That's because a 149-page Treasury Board submission on advertising has been deemed advice to cabinet, putting it under a shroud of secrecy that even the federal information commissioner can't penetrate.
A spokesman for the Privy Council Office, the bureaucracy that supports the Prime Minister's Office, would only say that the slogan is drawn from the "thematics" of the government's 2013 throne speech.
Opposition critics point out the language is also drawn from the 2011 Conservative party platform, and call it a flagrant abuse of both public funds and the access to information system to cloak the rationale for what they see as partisan government advertising behind cabinet secrecy.
The Harper government has come under repeated criticism for spending tens of millions of dollars annually on advertising that some ad experts say is indistinguishable from the partisan branding of the Conservative party.
