Shine on, camera lights

Two press releases from the PMO, issued simultaneously to members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery this morning. One, from the weekend, at an event where the Prime Minister took no questions.  

PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER SPEAKS TO THE IMPORTANCE

OF CULTURAL MEDIA IN CANADIAN SOCIETY 

 

TORONTO – Prime Minister Stephen Harper today highlighted the importance of cultural media in Canadian society at a training seminar organized by the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) at Seneca College’s Markham Campus. 

“We believe strongly that freedom for Canadians goes hand-in-hand with journalistic freedom,” said the Prime Minister.  “Our liberty is strengthened when journalists are free to pursue truth, shine light into dark corners and assist the process of holding governments accountable.”

And then this one, for today:

 

 

PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER’S

 

PUBLIC EVENT

 

 

OTTAWA – Public event for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Monday, November 23^rd is:

 

 

Ottawa, Ontario

 

2:15 p.m. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will participate in a photo opportunity.

 

Langevin Block

 

*Photo opportunity only (cameras and photographers only)

 

Your money, their ads

Today, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has sent out a letter demanding an end to the rampant use of "10 percenters," as they're called, which are basically political flyers sent out to ridings by MPs, using taxpayer dollars.

It turns out that the Liberals' demands of today are quite similar to ones they raised while they were the ruling party; a concern that Conservatives portrayed back then as a death-bed conversion in the latter days of Paul Martin's government.  But what interested Conservatives back then, in terms of taxpayer-financed advertising, was larger.  I found this  interesting little transcript of a committee debate from 2005, in which Jay Hill, now the Government House Leader, says this during an exchange over the pamphlets:

This is an issue that I have repeatedly raised, Mr. Chairman. Every time this issue has come up, I've said that I'm more than willing to look at the use of householders and the use of ten percenters as soon as the government starts to be aware of the need to look at how they spend millions upon millions of tax dollars. That's the first point.

    I've never heard any concession on the part of the government that we should maybe take a look at whether it's appropriate to put up big banners, ads, and logos advertising the Government of Canada, because it gives an unfair advantage to whoever the government is. Over the past dozen of years, that has obviously been the Liberal Party of Canada. They've blurred the lines, and it has been well reported in the Gomery report that they blurred the lines between what was in the best interests of the Liberal Party of Canada and what was in the best interests of the Government of Canada.

Pent-up, but also current Liberal bitterness

The Globe and Mail has unearthed and translated a devastating Facebook post by Janine Krieber, Stephane Dion's wife.   Krieber has not been seen much since Dion stepped down a year ago; she did not show up at the tribute to Dion at the Liberals' convention in May (which was a bit surreal.)  I did see her visiting the Commons about a week ago, led into the Opposition lobby by MP Marlene Jennings.

Her Facebook post  speaks volumes about the state of the party (and has now, reportedly been deleted.) With thanks/credit to the Globe, here's the translation of the now-erased entry.

It's been a year and one week since I last wrote on my blog. Ah! "la présidente" is lazy. But we have to take action now.

The Liberal Party is falling apart, and will not recover. Like all liberal parties in Europe, it will become a weakling at the mercy of ephemeral coalitions. By refusing the historic coalition that would have placed it at the helm of the left, it will be punished by history.

Anyway, I became convinced of it the moment that Paul Martin treated Jean Chrétien so cavalierly. The party died at that moment. If the Toronto elites had been more in tune, humble and realist, Stéphane would have been willing to take all the time and absord all the hits needed to rebuild the party. But they couldn't swallow the 26%, and now we are at 23%.

The time for choices is now. I don't want to see the Conservatives continue to change my country. They are, slowly, like any dictatorship, changing the world. Torture doesn't exist, corruption is a fabrication. Do we really have the right leader to discuss these questions? Can someone really write these insanities and lead us to believe that he simply changed his mind? In order to justify violence, he must have engaged in serious thought. Otherwise, it's very dangerous. How can we be sure that he won't change his mind one more time?

The party grassroots had understood all of that, and the average citizen is starting to understand it too. Ignatieff's supporters have not done their homework. They did not read his books, consult his colleagues. They were satisfied that he could be charming at cocktails. Some of them are outraged now. I am hearing: Why did no one say it? We told you loud and clear, you didn't listen.

I am starting a serious reflection. I will not give my voice to a party that will end up in the trashcan of history. I am looking around me, and certain things are attractive. Like a dedicated party that doesn't challenge its leader at every hiccup in the polls. A party where the rule would be the principle of pleasure, and not assassination. A party where work ethic and competence would be respected and where smiles would be real.

Maybe I'm not dreaming.

"La présidente."

Distemper of the times

Three items in the news over the past 24 hours  are threatening to whip up some worrisome sentiment among politicians and the public.

1.  Richard Colvin's testimony to the Commons committee on torture of Afghan detainees is making him a target for a discrediting campaign. So far, it's not very pretty.

2. The story of Conservative mailings to Liberal ridings, accusing MPs of being anti-Jewish, is not the kind of thing you'd expect to happen in this day and age.

3. The reports of Harper's trip to Amritsar, and the chaotic visit to the Golden Temple, has people on all sides worked up. (We closed the comments on the earlier post, incidentally, because of what people were saying about Harper. And yes, commenters, I do know the communion-wafer story was exposed as false. The mention was to draw a parallel to the potential for controversy.)

For the record, I don't believe that any politician, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is interested in opening up this vein of anger within the Canadian public. Politicians have the tough job of managing divisions in this country, not increasing them.  The fact that our Parliament includes people who would like to secede from Canada, for instance, is an example of how we manage divisions by keeping them in the realm of open, civilized debate. Probably a good idea to keep this in mind with the kind of stories we're seeing in the news this week.

Making friends in India

Further to the previous post, it seems like Canadian journalists have not endeared themselves to people in India either during the PM's trip.  Among other things, their spelling abilities have offended. (I find it hard to understand too, why Gandhi's name is so hard for people to get right.)

As David Akin reports: "Apparently, we -- the Canadian media travelling with Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week -- ruffled a few feathers during our three days here."

Full story here.

Another story from the PM's India trip

Here's how the Tribune in India is reporting the story of our Prime Minister's trip to the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

 A familiar tale to some of us, but apparently this paper is unaccustomed to the trademark Harper style. I am told that refusing prasad and langar is somewhat like shoving a communion wafer in one's pocket, but that's another story.

Here's the Tribune story.

Amritsar, November 18

Controversy and chaos marked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Golden Temple visit.

Harper refused to partake of prasad at Darshani Deodi after being dissuaded by his aide, Alisa Mohammed. He also declined langar.

SGPC officials said she also made them vacate their information office prior to the premier’s arrival. “When we objected, she said she had already spoken to the SGPC secretary on the matter. It is for the first time that we have suffered such humiliation at hands of a foreigner in our own office,” said a senior SGPC official, expressing resentment over the behaviour of the Canadian PM’s staff.

Multi-tier security provided by officials of intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Punjab Police, CID and the overzealous Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee task force converted the complex into a fortress. Perhaps for the first time, movement of devotees came to a halt during a VVIP’s visit.

Members of SGPC’s task force allegedly snatched cameras of photojournalists and misbehaved with them. Even Canadian journalists were jostled around and manhandled. The video camera of a CBC journalist fell during the melee. “It seemed that everyone was policing and there were more securitymen in the complex,” a Canadian journalist told this correspondent.

Though Indian photojournalists were restricted to three pre-determined points in the Parkarma, their Canadian counterparts were allowed to perch on veranda roofs along the Parkarma. SGPC chief Avtar Singh assured action against erring task force officials.



 

Old vs. new media: the etiquette

An interesting division is emerging in terms of etiquette between "old" and "new" media.   

This week, my colleague Allan Woods, who has a knack for finding these kind of stories,  twigged to the news that the parliamentary restaurant was getting ready to put seal meat on the menu. The story was supposed to appear for the first time in today's paper.  But we learned late in the day that Canadian Press was on to the story too, so we slapped it on the web as soon as possible. This morning, as I scan the papers, I see that  many news outlets have the story, each claiming it as their own. Canadian Press, I should say, is used to this. CP reporters work for days on stories only to see newspapers rip the item from the wire and rewrite so it can have a staff byline. Ugh.

In the blogosphere and on Twitter, however, the general practice is to give credit or an h/t (hat tip) to where you first learn of news. It's a more collaborative than competitive universe, by and large, which sees  reporters for The Globe, The Star, Macleans, CanWest referring readers to each other's posts. Yesterday, for instance, when I posted the memo on changes in the Opposition Leader's Office, I noticed that The Globe and others were sending readers this way immediately. (There were some exceptions,  usual ones; they've been noted.)

Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?,  says that the latter etiquette is the way of the future. Old media manage scarcity, he says; new media value large, collaborative networks. I highly recommend Jarvis's  work, by the way. I saw him speak last year at the Rotman School of Business at U of T and I was hooked; I think I've given copies of his book to at least a half dozen people who are interested in the shape of the future media world.  I also recommend the etiquette of the "new" media; it make the wild west of the Internet a little less wild.

The new OLO

Here it is. The new staff lineup in the Liberal leader's office; as laid out in a memo that just went out to MPs' offices this morning.

Dear Liberal Colleagues,

Today is my first day on the job as Chief of Staff in Mr. Ignatieff’s office and I am delighted to be back on the Hill and part of the Liberal Team.

As Mr. Ignatieff has said, we have a lot of work ahead of us to earn the confidence and support of all those Canadians who want a strong alternative to the Harper Conservatives.  I look forward to working shoulder-to-shoulder with all of you – and with Liberals across Canada - in the months ahead in earning that support.

Indeed, as with any winning effort, to succeed we must work as a team, a disciplined and determined team.   To that end, I am very pleased to announce the new senior staff compliment in the OLO.  This is a very seasoned group of proven individuals with a wide breadth of experience in politics and the wider public sphere.   Moreover, as you will see from the organization chart, the emphasis will be, as it must, on clear lines of authority and responsibility as well as accountability for execution and results.

http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/olo-org.pdf

Principal Secretary – Jean Marc Fournier

Jean Marc was the Liberal Member for the riding of Chateauguay in the Quebec National Assembly from 1994 to 2008.  He served, respectively, as Opposition Whip and, later, as Minister of Municipal Affairs, Minister of Education, Minister of Revenue, and House Leader in the governments of Premier Jean Charest.  After deciding not to seek re-election in 2008, Jean Marc was a senior advisor to Mr. Charest in the election that saw the Charest government return to majority status.  As Principal Secretary, Jean Marc will provide senior strategic counsel to Mr. Ignatieff.

Chief Operating Officer – Patricia Sorbara

Pat is one of the most experienced Liberal organizers and logistics experts in Canada. She was a senior member on the staffs of Ontario Premier David Peterson and his ministers.  She served as Chief Returning Officer for the Liberal Party of Canada in the hard-fought 2006 Leadership Convention.  In 1997, Pat co-founded Advanced Utility Systems, a software company she very successfully built and later sold in 2006.  As COO, Pat will be responsible for the entire operations of the OLO, with all directors reporting to her.  She will report directly to me. 

Director of the Liberal Caucus Research Bureau and Senior Policy Advisor to the Leader– Brian Bohunicky

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Brian served in the Chretien government as an aide to Lloyd Axworthy and as Chief of Staff to David Anderson during the latter’s time both as Minister of Fisheries and Minister of Transport.  He has worked in provincial and federal Liberal campaigns in both Manitoba and British Columbia.  Since 2000, Brian has been a public servant in four successive departments, most recently Agriculture Canada.  Brian also holds a Rhodes Scholarship from Oxford University.  In his new capacities, Brian will hold two roles: As Director of the LCRB, he will report to the Liberal Caucus Executive, as Senior Policy Advisor to the Leader, he will report within the new OLO structure.

Director of Communications – Mario Laguë

Mario served as a communication aide to Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa and as Quebec’s representative in Venezuela and Mexico.   In the Government of Canada, Mario has been DG Communications in Inter-Governmental Affairs, and he served for five years as ADM Communications in the Privy Council Office – the highest communications function in the federal public service.  In 2004, Mario served as Director of Communications for Prime Minister Paul Martin.  He subsequently served as Canadian Ambassador to Costa Rica, and most recently, as head of global communications for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest environmental organization, based in Switzerland.   Mario will hold responsibility for all OLO communications, including the Press Office.

Director of Operations – Sachin Aggarwal

Sachin has been in the OLO since 2008. He was National Director of Operations in Michael Ignatieff’s 2006 leadership campaign and managed Mr. Ignatieff’s two successful campaigns for Parliament in Etobicoke Lakeshore in 2006 and 2008. Prior to joining the OLO, Sachin practiced corporate law at Torys LLP in Toronto.

Director of Legislative Affairs – Jeremy Broadhurst

Jeremy has been in the OLO since 2006.  He has served as senior policy advisor under Liberal leaders Bill Graham, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.  Jeremy entered government in 2004, when Mr. Graham was Defence Minister.  He also boasts practical political experience, serving as Mr. Graham’s campaign manager in the 2004 and 2006 elections.  Jeremy holds a law degree from the University of Toronto, and was an associate with the law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg in Toronto.  Jeremy will be the OLO lead on all matters pertaining to Parliamentary strategies and tactics, working in close coordination with the Opposition House and Senate Leader’s offices.

Caucus Liaison – Karen Redman

Karen was MP for Kitchener Centre from 1997 to 2008.  She has served as both Chief Government Whip and Chief Opposition Whip, as well as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the environment.  In her decade on the Hill, Karen was one of the most respected and hard-working Members of Parliament in Ottawa.   Karen is already nominated to be the Liberal candidate in the next federal election.  Her strong and deep ties with her former – and future – caucus colleagues will ensure maximum coordination between the OLO and MPs and Senators.

Party Liaison – Heather Chiasson

Heather has been involved with the Liberal Party since the early eighties.  She has been a member of the National Executive, representing Atlantic Canada.  Since 1992, Heather has been a constant and steadfast presence at the LPC National Office, first as a volunteer, later as a staffer.  Heather has also been vice chair of a crown corporation for 8 years and has also served on a variety of NGO and Community Boards.  In her new role, Heather will serve as a link for the OLO – and, importantly, for Mr. Ignatieff personally – with the National Office, the National Campaign Committee and active Liberals across Canada.

Executive Assistant to the Leader – Jim Pimblett

Jim served as EA to Prime Minister Paul Martin from 2003 to 2006 – the perfect, high-pressure, high-performance experience for his OLO responsibilities.  Prior to joining Mr. Martin’s staff, Jim was Director of Tour and Events in the office of then-Ontario Opposition Leader Dalton McGuinty. He has an MBA from Queens University and was working as a management consultant prior to joining the OLO.  Jim will travel with Mr. Ignatieff and be responsible for Mr. Ignatieff’s schedule.

These appointments, with one exception, are effective immediately.  Brian Bohunicky will join the team on December 7.

In Michael Ignatieff, we Liberals have a leader of truly international standing.  He understands the huge, long term economic challenges our country is facing – and the tremendous human cost they are already exacting across Canada under a callous, uncaring, incompetent government.  And he knows that our future depends on innovative thinking and caring, engaged leadership to enable our country to secure the industries and jobs of tomorrow - and the prosperity and the strong, vital social programs that go with them.

Our job in the OLO is to help Mr. Ignatieff and his Liberal Team across Canada bring that message of hope and change to Canadians in the months ahead. 

Peter Donolo

 

New and improved OLO

A whole new staff lineup is supposed to be announced as early as today in Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's office. The big question is: who's the new director of communications? As we hear things here, we'll update, and of course, all tips welcome.

Best communication is no communication?

The tale of two communications strategies, one working, one not, is in the newest issue of the Hill Times, (access obtained via National Newswatch.)

Journalists may not like the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper slips in and out the back door of the Commons, avoids scrums and news conferences and the like, but it's working, says the Hill Times.  More discouraging, for fans of openness and transparency, is Tim Naumetz's observation that the media has been collectively worn down.

Gallery President Helene Buzzetti says the struggle came to be too draining, a distraction from work, and there has only been one tentative exchange with Harper's new communications director, John Williamson. Nothing has come of it so far. Outside Ottawa, Harper most often arranges his news conferences at venues packed with party members, who usually applaud his remarks and occasionally express disapproval at reporters' questions. Favourable PMO photos of Harper now arrive at media inboxes across the country on almost a daily basis. Gallery veterans are convinced Soudas has a black list, journalists who won't be recognized for questions.

Nelson Wiseman, a prominent commentator and political scientist at the University of Toronto, says the press gallery and the media have caved. "Why are you putting up with these shenanigans?" the feisty Wiseman asks. "I thought the media was going to be a bit tougher."

Meanwhile, the same paper said that the top job for Peter Donolo, who begins work officially today tomorrow as chief of staff to Michael Ignatieff, is to "sharpen the message and toughen up." 

 One big question mark is hanging today over the Liberals and communication, in fact - who is going to be the new director of communications, now that Jill Fairbrother is gone? Rumours are rife, but anyone with solid information is most welcome to send it this way....

 Of course, given the success of the Prime Minister's communications approach, maybe the Liberals' winning strategy is merely to disappear and never be heard from again.