Canadian PM Stephen Harper renames government after himself

I wish so freaking hard I was only kidding.

Next he's going to rename the month of June after himself.

I'm sorry, I'm to busy being blinded by the sheer shiny glorious awesomeness of his crap to consider the implications of this.

edited 5th Mar '11 11:28:04 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Next he's going to rename the month of June after himself.

think THATS bad? Read up on this motherfucka. Mayor of Cloud Cuckio L And indeed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaming_of_Turkmen_months_and_days_of_week,_2002 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhnama

edited 5th Mar '11 11:37:02 PM by BalloonFleet

Niyazov banned the use of lip syncing at public concerts in 2005 as well as sound recordings at "musical performances on state holidays, in broadcasts by Turkem television channels, at all cultural events organized by the state... in places of mass assembly and at weddings and celebrations organized by the public," citing a negative effect on the development of musical arts incurred by the use of recorded music.

OK, that one is kind of hilarious.

He also banned news reporters and anchors from wearing make-up on television, apparently because he believed Turkmen women were already beautiful enough without make-up.

D'aaaaawww, that's sho sho shweeeeet!

This post was thumped by the Codfish in a Derby Hat

And then he killed everybody. Anyway, huzzah, Canada-mocking time.

Dimitri Soudas, the Prime Minister's spokesman, said in an e-mail that the style is “a long-standing practice that accurately reflects the government's leadership, regardless of who was the prime minister.”

Except they always used to say Government of Canada. Just lie straight to everyone's faces. Fucking asshole.

I can't tell if this guy is one of the biggest assholes on the planet or just plain fucking awesome.

Probably both, like Duke Nuke'm. Crosses the Line Twice and what not.

But seriously, this is a bad, bad idea.

This post was thumped by the Shillelagh of Whackingness

I can't help leaning towards the awesome.

I mean, why else would you name something after yourself? A strategic maneuver?

What do you expect is going to happen, when you vote in a conservative?

Harper has this odd fascination with putting his name or the conservative parties logo on official government documents. I wonder if I can be exempt from paying taxes, after all I live under the Government of Canada, not this weird nation of Harper.

@Balloon Fleet: Yes, that is who I was making reference to.

Funny, I thought you were referencing Rome.

I'm having trouble seeing how this is different from <U.S. president> Administration.

This may be because there is actually a difference, and I fail at politics.

The weirdness here is that they previously had a perfectly valid system going, and there seems to be zero reason for the change other than egotism.

As a servant of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, I am now honour bound to kill Stephen Harper.

Sigh, I'm going to have to do a determinator walk across the Atlantic ocean.

Seconding the confusion. What's so strange about this compared to "Obama administration" or something? I guess it's just not the norm in Canada.

Edit: On second viewing, it looks like the outrage is because he's literally renaming the Government's official name after himself.

edited 6th Mar '11 6:21:24 AM by Exploder

Well, the tradition is different in Canada. Namely that the government is still the same government, usually doing similar things, just being run by different people. In a bunch of ways Canada is actually more conservative than the US, it's just that the political swings are much less wild, and to be honest the nomenclature really does have something to do with it.

Why is this a big deal? Well, Canada does a LOT more advertising than the US government does, about various things. Things about new programs, or initiatives, or goals. So in these advertisements, they'll now say the Harper Government instead of the Government of Canada. There are also very strict campaign laws about keeping politics out of the day to day running of the government, and this change really pisses all over those laws.

One final thing. I watched the video that Boing Boing had linked, and I facepalmed SO hard when I saw whose idea/who was in charge of implementing this. I won't spoil the surprise for the people who know Canadian politics :p

Fuckin' Stockwell Day...

The sad thing is the Conservatives will probably win an election even after all the shit they've pulled in the past year.

I take it Mr Harper is not a... popular politician right now? Generally, you don't get governments in Westminster-type systems calling themselves by the name of the Prime Minister of the day in their own communications, so it does sound odd.

The current British Government gets called "The Coalition" by the media all the time, which makes it sound faintly sinister, but official documents will still talk about "The Government" or "HM Government".

Asscake also shut down the Liberal's press conference with police forces. This guy is like a dictator that needs his own anti-government protests.

His own integrity minister gets away with a half million dollar hush fund.

He shut down the war crimes investigation about Afghanistan.

His party is charged with election campaign funding fraud.

And he's got the highest rating in the god damn polls. [bleep] you voters.

edited 6th Mar '11 10:08:38 AM by breadloaf

This is different from things like "the Obama administration" because in the US there is usually a distinction drawn between the presidential administration and the government as a whole. The president represents only one branch of the federal government rather than the whole thing, so they are usually referred to separately.

Also, Mr. Harper, I salute you.

Extremism is quite popular with base and lean voters.