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The determination of Canada’s public-sector unions to enlist their members in the cause of ousting Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a bad idea that just keeps getting worse. It defies logic, threatens their members’ interests, violates the separation of powers, undermines public servants’ integrity and invites a backlash.

It defies logic by embracing the growing childish personalization of Canadian politics. Whatever Harper’s political and personal failings, he can hardly be responsible for every policy problem from deficits to unemployment to our rusted-out military and unsustainable public-sector compensation. Yet, increasingly, public-sector unions don’t feel obliged to endorse any particular party, let alone their policies. Just oust the ugly blue troll and wait for the milk and honey to flow.

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It’s strange enough when PSAC or CUPE do it. It’s even weirder to see an Ontario teachers’ union launch a “Heave Steve” campaign blatantly unconnected to its members’ working conditions. And, as if that were not enough, now the Professional Institute of Public Servants of Canada has jumped onto the “Anybody But Conservatives” bandwagon, calling the Tories so anti-democratic, hostile to environmental and safety programs, and generally awful as to require jettisoning the traditional neutrality on which the integrity of the public service relies.