Harper still a social media prime minister

On Twitter, Thomas Mulcair is the NDP leader and Justin Trudeau is just a guy who wants to “change the world, a little bit every day.”

But Stephen Harper is still the prime minister of Canada, staking his social media presence firmly in the grey zone between official business and online electioneering.

Harper is still using the Twitter accounts he uses as the country’s leader — @pmharper and @premierministre — and both still identify the Conservative leader as the prime minister of Canada.

Harper’s Facebook page also describes him as prime minister of Canada.

The Conservatives continue to be the sitting government unless and until another party is elected and there is nothing preventing members of that government from using the tools of government during a campaign, says Penny Bryden, a professor and political historian at the University of Victoria.

“It’s one of the great advantages the people in office have at election time,” she tells Yahoo Canada News.

“I don’t think there are specific rules governing social media, so the fact that he can still use Prime Minister’s Office letterhead suggests that he can still use Facebook.”

The Prime Minister’s Office has previously confirmed that he only rarely tweets himself. His communications staff members conducted his social media accounts.

But other than departmental accounts — Environment Canada, for example — social media are MPs’ private accounts, says the Treasury Board Secretariat.

And while most MPs and cabinet ministers have updated those accounts to reflect that the country is in an election, there is no steadfast rule that says Harper must stop referring to himself as prime minister.

Technically, he is.

The Privy Council Office’s says the country is in a “caretaker” period between dissolution and the swearing-in of the next government.

While Harper and his government formally lose their status they ensure the business of government continues.

“As is always the case between elections, ministers, ministers of state and exempt staff are obliged to ensure that the resources of the department and portfolio — financial, materiel and human resources — are not used for partisan purposes,” say the PCO guidelines for the conduct of ministers, members of Parliament and public servants during an election.

They must be vigilant, it says, “taking care to avoid even the appearance that departmental and portfolio resources are being used for campaign purposes.”

Members of government aren’t even supposed to use cellphones that belong to government for campaign purposes.

But there’s no such rule about individual social media accounts.

As far as Elections Canada is concerned, messages sent for free over social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook are not election advertising, and therefore not subject to federal election advertising rules.

Grey area or not, many federal candidates have stopped identifying themselves as members of Parliament since the writ was dropped, including cabinet minister Jason Kenney, Rona Ambrose and Leona Aglukkaq.

Rob Nicholson appears to have stopped using the Twitter account linked to his role as foreign affairs minister altogether. Nicholson, who had been a fairly consistent tweeter, hasn’t posted any messages since July 28.

But it seems not everyone got that memo.

Tony Clement continues to describe himself as president of the Treasury Board, Pierre Poilievre as minister of employment and social development and Joe Oliver as minister of finance.