Harper defends screening ministers' statements

[tuvor]

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his desire to have all public comments cleared by his office is nothing unusual and is aimed at ensuring that his ministers don't contradict each other.

Mr. Harper responded for the first time since The Globe and Mail reported on a new policy in which all of the government's communications, from speeches to letters to the editor, must have prior approval from the Prime Minister's Office.

"I think the rules of this government are the same as the rules in any other government. It is necessary for the government to speak with one voice and ministers know the announcements of other ministers before reading them in the papers," he said in French during a television interview broadcast last night on TVA.

"It's not different in my government than in any other government . . . in any government that will succeed. The population knows that if a government is always contradicting itself in public, that government won't last."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060321.HARPER21/TPStory/National

[HEyHEY]

1. He's doing it cause he knows his party is full of blow-hards

That could easily blow his government to smithereens if they say the wrong thing.