I STILL don't like CanadianAlly.com. So there.

I'm guessing Dave over at TGB and I are never going to see eye-to-eye on the web site CanadianAlly.com. As you can see back here, I still don't care for it, although Dave over at TGB is being more charitable. Personally, I have a couple major objections.

First, I think that site is an incoherent mixture of random content which doesn't seem to reflect its alleged purpose. If you go to its "About" page, you read that the purpose of that site is:

A comprehensive look at defence and security issues from a variety of key sources, outlining Canada's role in North American and Global Security and the War on Terror.

In the first place, I really, really, really don't like the phrase "War on Terror." The fact that it's capitalized the way it is clearly reflects that it's taken directly from American propaganda. That phrase is simply dishonest as, this whole time, the U.S. has never issued an official declaration of war so it just plain bugs the shit out of me to see Canada being sucked into repeating that kind of American, right-wing talking point. But that's not all.

As I mentioned in my earlier piece, it's more than a little inconsistent for that site's keeper, Lt-Col Robertson, to complain about trying to correct myths about Canadian security such as that some of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada, and yet that fairy tale is corrected nowhere on that site. What's the point of bitching about urban legends if you don't make even the smallest effort to debunk them? And, naturally, it gets worse.

Again, the About page suggests strongly that the site focuses on "Canada's role in North American and Global Security and the War on Terror." Which would be fine, I guess, if that's what it did. So why do we have subpages discussing things like, oh, the American system of government, or various non-security related issues like softwood lumber or marijuana laws, or the arts in Canada? There is no apparent theme to that site -- it's just a bunch of random, sort of Canada-related pages tossed up there, I'm guessing to appease some American's desire to see Canada get more involved in this whole War on Terror thing.

But what bothers me the most is that that site displays the official "Government of Canada" graphics at the top of each page. I think that's flat-out dishonest. In my opinion, only official government web sites should be allowed to claim that status, and it's clear that CanadianAlly.com is no such thing.

Quite simply, if that site is an official Government of Canada (GC) site, it should be under the gc.ca domain. If it isn't, it shouldn't be using the official GC graphics and it shouldn't have links to it from the gc.ca domain. As it is, what's being done is depressingly sleazy -- that site exists in some weird gray area where it's not "really" GC-type official but it's considered official enough to cozy up in uncomfortable ways. And I think that's inappropriate, but I don't imagine it's going to change now.

It's obvious that the notion of what constitutes an "official" web site of the Government of Canada has now been subverted to include some weird category of pseudo-official web pages that come with their own built-in deniability, and I suspect it's only going to get worse.

AFTERTHOUGHT: As I've beaten to death, part of my irritation with that site is its use of the official GC graphics at the top, despite the fact that it's not under the "gc.ca" domain, which inspires two questions.

First, are there official rules as to who or what is allowed to use those graphics? And, second, are there any other web sites anywhere not under the "gc.ca" domain that use those graphics? As Lt-Col. Robertson explained to Dave, "The Embassy also maintains another site, www.connecttoCanada.com It's purpose is to engage the hundreds of thousands of expat Canadians who live in the U.S."

But that site doesn't use the official GC graphics, does it? Why not? If the Canadian embassy in Washington claims to maintain both of those sites, what's the distinction between them? And, asking once again, can any of my readers locate any other web sites that use the official GC graphics that aren't under the "gc.ca" domain?