If we ask an archivist from Library and Archives Canada to come to the Canadian Historical Association annual meeting, would they come? For if they did, wouldn't it be a 'high risk' activity? Maybe we'd be asking them to out themselves in public - putting the GOVERNMENT OF CANADA (all caps please) in jeopardy. They would be like homosexuals in a modern day bookish Cold War security scare - blackmail able because we knew their dirty secrets.
If you think I'm being crazy (and I am, and I'm not) then take a look at the news about a new code of personal conduct being pushed at Library and Archives Canada. It suggests that librarians and archivists who go to such things as conferences would be participating in 'high risk' activity.
See a good story by Margaret Munro in the Post here.
And Aaron Wherry puts it into the context of wider government communications craziness on his blog here.
These changes that came down from Treasury Board last summer have already had an effect on other areas of the civil service, including our colleagues in Parks Canada. Last year at the CHA Annual Meeting, I knew of some Parks Canada historians who were reticent to speak publicly about recent government policies.
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