Buckler rides the resignation wave

Sandra Buckler, the Prime Minister's communications chief, is leaving her job. Will this change things between the PMO and the media in Harper's Ottawa? My view is, probably not much. I was never really sure what Buckler did, frankly, beyond implementing higher-ups' wishes to antagonize the parliamentary press gallery and sending out terse, non-informational emails. I'm sure they'll be able to find someone else to do that job. Ottawa is filled with folks who can follow orders.

Buckler's departure, actually, is part of a larger wave of resignations we have been seeing and are going to see in the days ahead. Many will be prompted simply by the fact that "it's time" - Buckler, chief of staff Ian Brodie, etc.

Others may be looking at next week - July 2, 2008, when the measures of the federal accountability act come into force. Why is that relevant? Because the act creates something known as "designated office holders" - ministers, ministerial staff and others - who are not allowed to lobby for five years after leaving their jobs on the Hill.

So there will be plenty of folks in Harper's Ottawa right now, envisioning a lucrative lobbying career, who may be packing up their desks as soon as  today. Never  mind that Harper once famously said: "If there are (Parliament) Hill staffers who dream of making it rich trying to lobby a future Conservative government, if that's true of any of you, you had better make different plans, or leave."

One of my colleagues, returning from the 2005  news conference where that statement was  uttered, translated it this way: "Liberals can't be trusted, but I don't trust you guys much either."

At any rate, watch for a trickle or even a flow of exits before next Wednesday. And then we can start speculating on who's going to replace all these people.

UPDATE: Garth Turner has an extensive list of what Ms. Buckler did in her job at the PMO.

I join Garth, by the way, in wishing her well in future endeavours.

Comments

[Mike]

I thought your original headline reference to "Bucker" was wholly appropriate, but probably for a whole bunch of wrong reasons that are best left unelaborated here.

[BarryW]

There has been a great deal of discussion in recent years about how mean spirited Ottawa has become - some of this laid at the Conservative Government's door. That may be, but the mean spiritness of the politicians pales in comparison to that of the national media. Your "by the way" comment at the end of the blog is a example of this. When Buckler was diagnosed with cancer one of your fellow media types couldn't resist the temptation to make a snide comment, for which she later apologised. Maybe you should try a showing little class also.

[Neil]

I would hazard a guess 99.99% of the population don't know this person, what she did and/or what was her lot in life.......... and to a greater extend, don't really care.

[Ferg]

two things strike me from previous comments...

Neil, you may be right (though I doubt that statistic is that high)but why do you and others keep saying that. We obviously care, we're on this site. We find this stuff interesting. I don't go to ornithology blogs and tell them that the rest of the world doesn't care. If you don't like this type of information, log off, go away and stop posting the obvious.

Barry, I think you really parsed a sentence there. I read this as a positive wish for Ms. Buckler, and if I recall this blog actually wished her well at the time her illness was made public. But from what I hear, Ms. Buckler has not showed a lot of class in dealing with either the media, or the men and women who put their name on the ballot for the Conservative Party of Canada, who are also, by the way, wishing her well.

[ja]

You don't seem to be aware that there are transition provisions in place which affect senior staffers who may want to be lobbyists even if they leave before July 1.