For Stephen Harper, Accountability and Censorship Go Hand in Hand

When the Conservative Party was elected to form the current minority government, one of the major, if not the most prominent plank in its platform was the restoration of a standard of accountability in government, an apparent reaction to scandals that plagued the outgoing Liberal government. Sounds like a reasonable idea to most, I would imagine.
However, with seeming increasing frequency, Mr. Harper believes that increasing government accountability is possible while severely limiting the amount of information (ie. censoring) that is able to reach the public regarding the operation of government.
I was first quite disturbed that Mr. Harper's government was

ending the third-floor interviews [with the press] because the crowded area was not
safe for reporters and the traditional shouting of questions did not help
either the politicians or the media look good.

After allowing his ministers a new back way out of cabinet meetings so that reporters would not necessarily be able to ask questions, on March 28,

[l]ess than a half dozen of the 26 ministers came through the new waiting area
for the media after the cabinet meeting, including Finance Minister Jim
Flaherty, who held a brief scrum with reporters and photographers scrambling for
position at the top of a marble staircase.
As he answered questions on a wide
range of topics, Mr. Harper appeared visibly annoyed when he was asked about his
new media rules.
"I'm available regularly to answer questions if there are
questions of substance," he said.
Reporters who asked about the lack of
access to ministers received short answers, and Mr. Harper would signal to his
press secretary Dimitris Soudas to call the next reporter's name. Mr. Soudas has
been assigned to control which reporters are allowed to ask questions during the
Prime Minister's press conferences.

Is this for real? Since when did press interaction with government ministers have the purpose of making everyone look good? Perhaps Mr. Harper is confusing the press with a royal scribe. They are not there to make him look good. If anything, just the opposite should be true. Any healthy democracy must have a press that is not afraid or barred from challenging power structures.

I was just pondering what else might be next when I read this, just from this last weekend:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has forbidden Canada's top military brass from
speaking publicly for fear of detracting attention from his government's top
priorities.
A top military officer said the Prime Minister's Office recently
told Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier his speaking engagements had to be
approved and his speeches would be vetted by Harper's staff.
Hillier was
told to advise his top generals, admirals and commodores that the order applies
to them.

Detracting from his government's top priorities? What might those be? Lying to the public? Putting up smokecreens? I must say that these are very disappointing developments to me, reminiscent of a certain administration south of the border that has been shown to have had very much to hide and to be most unaccounable indeed.