Don't call it new government, get fired.

It would seem that the Tories are purging the civil service of people that won't play ball with the Tories "re-branding" of government in the Tory image. The latest casualty was a geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada.

So basically, unless a Government of Canada employee pays homage to the Conservatives, they're out. So much for the government of the day treating the civil service as a group of professionals. I wouldn't expect much more from the current Tories. It's been rumored that many of the Tories think the civil service is a Liberal plant, filled with Liberal patronage appointees. Now it's likely true to some extent some of the top civil servants at the deputy minister level, but is highly unlikely at the lower levels.

So we now have a government that wants to decimate the civil service. Eliminate the professionals who help keep government running smoothly and replace them with party hacks. More and more the Tories are starting to look more and more like a capitalist version of the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Top down control of the leader, challenges within the party being turned aside and now civil servants having to show total loyalty to the party. I'm sure that though technically not a requirement, a party membership card will ease one's entry into the civil service at some point in the near future.

Now much of this is speculation on my part of course, but it seems like an easy path for the Tories to go down given their utter paranoia of things that have even been touched by the Liberals. A purge of the civil service would be a logical step. Clear out the ideologically impure and replace them with more "reliable" people. It would also have the advantage of slowing any changes from the Tory agenda when they go back to the opposition benches as any new government would have to deal with the new people.

We shall see how all this pans out of course, as I could be wrong. I suspect we will see many more months of the Tories using the public purse as a way of publicizing themselves. Expect vote buying too, with large sums of money heading for Quebec and Ontario in the form of program spending directed directly at the voters of these provinces (leaks have already suggested that this is happening). So much for new and improved government.