“It’s exactly part of good practice. I think the idea is, try and have issues managers work with the ministers’ offices to make sure that new ministers are prepared and have the information they need,” said Dan Mader, former chief of staff to Conservative Cabinet ministers who went through several portfolio changes.
Scores of media members in the Parliamentary Press Gallery, including The Hill Times, were mailed an anonymous letter last Monday morning containing correspondence between PMO executive assistant of issues management Erica Furtado and PMO issue manager Nick Koolsbergen and the staff in ministers’ offices.
The email, sent out July 4, appears to follow up on a conference call and lists 10 items that should be in minister’s office’s political transition binders.
The photocopied email was sent along with a one-page letter, addressed to the media and signed from “A Friend,” stating that following a meeting of the issues management team in the PMO, all ministers’ offices were given direction on developing a separate and “political” transition binder. The letter arrived to media outlets on July 15, the day of the Cabinet shuffle.The anonymous source said it was made clear that they were to develop two lists for the incoming ministers; one of bureaucrats to avoid and one of stakeholder “enemies.” The source wrote, “Essentially, staff was to develop of blacklist in each category. When members of our office protested developing such lists, we were identified as political [sic] unreliable and quickly cut out of the loop.”
The source wrote that in the development of the stakeholder “enemies list,” examples requested were environmental groups, non-profits, civic and industry associations, “that had different views than those being advanced by the government.”
“As Canadians, we are appalled by the paranoia this request demonstrates. Yes, there will be differing opinions, but the government of the day, to instruct ministers’ offices to begin developing ‘blacklists’ of individuals and groups is alarming. Is this the real face of a new ‘fresh’ Cabinet?” wrote the source, who also said that he or she had been informed by his or her communications director to develop a similar list of “enemy reporters” for incoming communications staff, but said this request was made verbally and later withdrawn by the PMO as was the need for the list of “blacklisted public servants.”
When reached by news outlets last week, the PMO would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the email, stating that the office does not comment on internal communications. The National Post has reported it has confirmed the authenticity of the email via several sources. The PMO told Global News there was no list of “enemy reporters.”
Two particular items have caused a backlash: “Who to avoid: bureaucrats that can’t take no (or yes) for an answer,” and “Who to engage or avoid: friend and enemy stakeholders.”
“It’s not normal, and the language that the PMO is using, speaking of friends and enemies, betrays a very damaging mindset that characterizes the Harper government,” said Liberal MP and former minister Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Sask.).
While the tone of the email may be negative, it’s “very useful for a new minister coming in to not just get an overview of the departments and the bureaucracy, but also get an overview of the political situation that’s being faced by that minister and from the political staff who have been there,” said Mr. Mader.
In the early days of the Conservative government, political information wasn’t so well organized, he noted. It is traditional for the bureaucracy to prepare thick briefing binders on policy issues and programs for incoming ministers. A minister’s first days in office are taken up with briefings by top bureaucrats on the apolitical aspects of their job.
“I know what it’s like to go into a minister’s office, where you don’t really have a sense of the political situation, or what you’re going to face, or who you’re going to face,” he said.
Mr. Mader was chief of staff to Minister of Veterans Affairs Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) when he was associate minister of national defence and minister of state for seniors. He has also been a policy advisor in a number of ministries and acting chief of staff to John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.) when he was minister of the environment.
“By the time we had been in government for a few years, we had gotten more organized as a team, and started to do things like preparing some sort of political transition notes, which are very, very, useful,” he said.
Mr. Mader said while the process has become more formal in recent years, the content has generally remained the same.
In the early days of the Conservative government, and prior to their time in office, the political aspects of transitions were managed with the incoming and outgoing ministers sitting down for a talk, with their chiefs of staff usually doing the same thing, said Keith Beardsley, former PMO deputy director of issues management for Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.).
“They’ll go over much of that information that you see there, but it’s relatively informal,” said Mr. Beardsley.
When transitioning portfolios, Mr. Goodale said he remembers the reams of bureaucratic information he was briefed on in his early days. He served as minister in a number of portfolios for 13 years under Liberal prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.
“Political considerations didn’t enter into the discussion,” he said.
The only information he got from the Prime Minister’s Office was a mandate letter outlining what the PM expected from him in his new job.
Item No. 9 on the PMO transition checklist has attracted controversy for asking ministerial staff to list “Who to engage or avoid: friend and enemy stakeholders.”
“The language is unfortunate, but the core concept of this is a valuable one, and that’s to say, ‘You’re going to make a bunch of phone calls the first day as a new minister, and you’re going to want to reach out to certain people, and really the most important thing is, who do you reach out to? And related to that is, who do you need to be concerned about?,” said Mr. Mader.
When you cut through the hyperbole in the PMO transition checklist, underneath it’s just another briefing, said Mr. Beardsley.
“The biggest issue here is tone more than anything, but a lot of that information would normally be imparted by the outgoing people to the incoming. It’s not overly exciting,” he said.
But Mr. Goodale said the enemies list is damaging and perpetuates animosity between the government and outside interest groups who don’t share their views through different generations of ministers.
“It is kind of a malignancy that spreads,” he said. The list has garnered comparisons to former U.S. president Richard Nixon, who is reported to have kept a list of enemies.
“What it also does is to make sure that there’s total control over consultation across the government by the Prime Minister’s Office, because the Prime Minister is obviously the one who sanctions this enemies list,” Mr. Goodale said added.
Incoming ministers also face tremendous pressure to get things done quickly, explained Chad Rogers, a partner with Crestview Strategy in Toronto and a former Conservative Hill staffer who has worked with Senators and MPs.
“Every day you are there you’ve got to be implementing an agenda, and if you’re not, the opportunity cost is huge to you, your party, your movement, because you’ve squandered what you’ve worked so hard to get,” he said.
The political information on who to engage and who to avoid, among other items, help a minister hit the ground running, Mr. Rogers said.
Just because outgoing ministers may inform their replacements about which individuals or groups to avoid upon assuming office, it does not necessarily mean they are instructed to avoid them indefinitely, Mr. Rogers noted.
“Do you want to meet with people who are established bad actors who don’t like you, don’t like your party, or don’t like your agenda?” he asked rhetorically.
“Maybe you do at some point down the road when you want to hear from a diversity of sources, but you need to know who the time wasters are, you need to know who the folks are that are always selling the same crazy idea and have been for 20 years,” he explained.
Item No. 6 on the list: “Who to avoid: bureaucrats that can’t take no (or yes) for an answer” has also attracted negative attention. In a follow up email later in the day, Mr. Furtado stated this item was no longer needed.
“There are always going to be people within the bureaucracy that a minister’s office builds a really strong working relationship with, and there are sometimes people who aren’t able to build quite as strong a working relationship with, and so it is useful information to know,” said Mr. Mader, who added Mr. Furtado may have been “overzealous” in her choice of words.
Mr. Beardsley said the item was “a weird one.”
“I don’t know what they’re trying to do with that one, to be quite honest,” he said,
“A lot of the time, when you interact with the bureaucracy it’s personalities. I can get along very well with a deputy minister, and think the deputy minister is A-1, or an ADM [assistant deputy minister]. Then the next chief of staff can come in and they can be fighting like cats and dogs,” he explained.
There could have easily been a more positive spin on that item, noted Mr. Mader.
“A key job for ministerial staff is building a good working relationship with the bureaucracy. If I had been doing this, I might have said, ‘Is there any advice as to how to really build a good relationship with your deputy minister or your other senior bureaucrats?” he said.
When Mr. Goodale was a minister, judgments of the bureaucratic staff were “never on the table at all,” he said.
“I never had anybody say to me, ‘You’ve got to avoid the director general of this, or the deputy minister of that because they’re of a different political persuasion,’” Mr. Goodale said.
“Where it comes to making a political judgment on a situation, that’s up to a minister, and if you’re not smart enough to make that judgment, then you shouldn’t be in Cabinet,” Mr. Goodale added.
The list of items in the transition binder are a non-scandal, said Mr. Rogers.
“This is about as serious a story as the NDP typo,” he said, referring to an email sent from the New Democrats on July 16. The party release stated new Minister of State Pierre Poilievre’s (Nepean-Carleton, Ont.) appointment “shows the rest of the caucus exactly what it takes to get head in Conservative Ottawa.”
“Anyone who is showing shock and horror at [the transition binder controversy] is yet another silly politician on a silly issue that the media are willing to devote silly time to,” Mr. Rogers said.
Liberal MP and former minister Scott Brison (King’s-Hants, N.S.) disagreed.
“We did not keep enemies lists,” he said.
“The level of paranoia and secrecy in mistrust of people within this government is unprecedented in Canadian politics,” he added.
Another item in the political transition checklist asks outgoing ministers to warn rookie member of Cabinet about “pet bureaucratic projects.”
“That’s pretty demeaning language aimed at the public service, as if they’re stalking about to trick the minister who may be green and might make a rookie’s mistake,” said Mr. Goodale.
But in some instances, departments try their luck at getting support for an outstanding project on their agenda with a new minister, noted the insiders.
“What the Prime Minister’s Office was getting at here was to let the next minister know that they may be coming back and asking about this again, and to think carefully about it,” said Mr. Mader.
“Most of the time, the ministers are going to say, ‘Okay, that’s a good idea.’ And they’ll sign off on it. But every once in a while, there will be things where the minister will say, ‘You know what, I don’t want to go and ask the minister of finance for the money for this,’ for example. Or, ‘I don’t want to do this piece of legislation,’” he explained.
It’s a minister’s job to ask thoughtful questions about any proposal, said Mr. Goodale.
The very first item on the transition checklist is a request for a copy of the minister’s Question Period book.
On breaking issues, ministers’ offices or the PMO will ask for an answer from the department or Privy Council Office. The bureaucracy will return an apolitical response, said Mr. Beardsley.
“The minister’s staff then take the answer and they basically tweak it to put the political emphasis on what they think they need to do,” he explained.
That information is compiled into a binder that the minister takes into Question Period every day to aid in answering questions on the fly.
Inside the QP binders is information on “sword/shield issues,” according to Ms. Furtado’s original email.
This is shorthand for issues the government is either aggressive or defensive on, say the insiders.
“What are these issues that you’re going to get clobbered with in the press or in the House when you come back? And which issues can we push forward? Do we have good stories that we can tell?” said Mr. Beardsley.
No. 2 on the checklist asks offices to outline “What to expect soon: hot issues, legal actions and complaints.”
This helps the new minister anticipate what sort of questions he’ll be asked in interviews, or the first time he meets with stakeholders, or whether he or she will have to make an important decision on a matter soon, explained Mr. Mader.
The point of these formalized transition procedures is so that “the new minister who is responsible for making high-level decision doesn’t have to waste time re-learning that which either their predecessors have learned or that which we can establish quickly,” said Mr. Rogers.
The third item requests a forecast of long-term issues and important events like federal-provincial meetings that the minister must set aside time to prepare for.
“A well-run minister’s office is not just thinking about what could be an issue now, but what’s coming up in the next six to 12 months,” said Mr. Mader.
“The farther ahead you’re thinking about them, the more prepared you can be,” Mr. Mader added.
A status update on mandate and other agenda points is requested another item in the checklist.
“If one minister is potentially going to be switched out, a new minister is coming in, it’s very useful for that minister to get an update,” said Mr. Mader.
Advice on what upcoming events and meetings to attend is also requested.
“One of the biggest and most critical ones for the minister is the federal-provincial-territorial meeting,” said Mr. Mader.
While the checklist doesn’t explicitly ask for a list of events to avoid, the tone of the email raises the possibility that certain events put on by interest groups not in favour with the government may be flagged, noted Mr. Goodale.
The request “in itself is not suspicious or untoward, but when you put it in the context of the other things that are in the memo, it would sort of contaminate the whole thing,” he said.
It’s more likely an attempt to help the new minister get a handle on his or her schedule, said Mr. Beardsley.
“Some of it I would expect would be political direction, but a lot of this is, ‘If you think you’re busy now, look at your next six months, what’s coming up,’” he said.
The PMO also asked ministers’ offices to give a list of “Who to appoint: outstanding GiCs [Governor in Council appointments] and hot prospects.”
“One of the more important duties of some ministers, like Justice or Transport or Industry, is making good appointments,” said Mr. Mader.
In some offices it may be a full-time job for a staff member to track openings and good candidates to fill them with, he said. The point of the update is to ensure the process doesn’t get delayed just because a new minister and his or her staff come in.
Conflict-of-interest laws do deter patronage appointments, as once someone is appointed, they can no longer fundraise or organize for a political party, he added.
“If you appoint somebody who is not qualified just because they are a supporter and they do a bad job, that reflects very badly on the minister and on the government, and just causes a lot more trouble than it’s worth,” he noted.
The last item on the checklist is a request for “Private Members’ Bills—lines and caucus packages.”
The “lines” likely refers to prepared responses to media requests about bills that would fall under a minister’s portfolio, even though they were introduced by a backbencher, said Mr. Mader.
When a government backbencher comes up with an idea for a bill he or she would approach the related minister’s office to get their blessing, said Mr. Beardsley. From there, the backbencher would work with the government House leader’s office and Parliamentary legal staff to come up with the exact wording of the bill. Then, the backbencher meets with the House leader’s staff, and sometimes the House leader himself, as well as staff from the related minister’s office to work through the bill and make sure everyone was on the same page, explained Mr. Beardsley.
A status report on all the government and opposition private bills would be “very valuable” for the new minister and staff, he said.
The “caucus packages” referenced in the request are briefings that go out to party Parliamentarians on any important announcements the minister is planning on making or controversial issues.
“A key part of the job in the ministers’ office is to make sure that all the members of caucus are aware of that issue and understand it,” said Mr. Mader. That way, if an MP is asked about an issue by the media or his or her constituents, he or she can give an informed answer.
Despite the hoopla caused by the leak of the memo, the checklist reveals the normal working of the government, said Mr. Beardsley.
“The wording is quite unfortunate, and that’s what gets everybody excited…but when you actually work your way through it, most of this is pretty mundane stuff,” he said.
He added: “The first rule I used to pound into my staff is that you don’t put something in an email that you don’t want to see in the front page of the paper. That’s the bottom line.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: JESSICA BRUNO, MICHAEL LAPOINTE
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