Kenney might be funnier … much funnier.
It’s not just Kenney’s nickname: Mr. Curry in a Hurry. Nor is it his political credo: have chopsticks, will eat anything for a vote.
Once so close to the Big Chair that his saliva glands kicked in every time he walked past the prime minister’s office, Kenney is now in the outer darkness of Opposition. He is closer to Pluto than being PM. Only Kevin O’Leary, orbiting Planet 9, seems further away.
Kenney has apparently handled the Harper government’s recent thrashing at the polls, and his altered prospects, by retreating into comedy.
Here is how his schtick came down on Twitter over the weekend: Former Veterans Affairs minister Erin O’Toole sent a tweet to political strategist Bruce Anderson observing that “friends of the Trudeau PMO go to the front of the line everywhere.”
Oh no Erin, not patronage, not in the federal government! How did all those Cons end up in the Senate — the Stork?
Anderson replied with a question: “Why assume Liberals are unqualified & Conservatives qualified, or the reverse? It’s just a form of partisan bias.”
Michael Wernick has been appointed by Justin Trudeau to replace Janice Charette as Clerk of the Privy Council. Wernick, a career public servant with 35 years in a wide range of important roles — including serving eight years as Harper’s DM of Aboriginal Affairs — is well liked and respected in federal circles.
The subject of the change at the Clerk’s office entered the Twitter exchange between Anderson and the Tories. A year before the federal election, Stephen Harper had appointed Ms. Charette to replace the retiring Wayne Wouters as top civil servant in the land. Was that appointment tinged with partisanship?
That was Jason Kenney’s cue to morph into Jason Fallon and crack up the Twitter-sphere.
“The CPC government never appointed a partisan to a PCO position. We would have been (rightfully) pilloried had we done so.”
Reality check? The public service under Harper was about as independent as Paul Calandra practising his non sequiturs in front of a mirror. Harper wanted senior civil servants to remember who appointed them and to do what they were told, full stop.
Now there is no question that Ms. Charette is intelligent, qualified, likeable and highly respected; after all, she had been deputy clerk of the Privy Council before her elevation to the top job in 2014.
But it is also public record that Ms. Charette was once Chief of Staff of then federal Conservative leader Jean Charest, that charming chameleon of Canadian politics who can’t quite decide between spots or stripes. Before that, Charette worked in the offices of senior Mulroney cabinet ministers Don Mazankowski, Michael Wilson, and Kim Campbell. Partisan? Maybe a teenie bit?
And just to round out the public information, more than one expert on the federal government was deeply troubled by the Harper government politicizing not just one position, however seminal, but the entire public service, including the PCO.
Former Clerk of the House of Commons, Robert Marleau, fingered then-outgoing clerk Wayne Wouters for making a “political” decision when he withheld information on spending cuts requested by then Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page.
Page was blunt in his assessment of what the Harper government had done to the public service — and what Charette’s appointment might mean.
After all, Charette was number two to Wouters in the PCO hierarchy, presumably in on all his strategic decisions, and according to Page, would therefore carry his “baggage forward.” It looked to Page as though in elevating Charette, the government wanted more of what Wouters had delivered.
The message to the public service from Harper was leave policy to us. You get a muzzle and a rubber-stamp — and maybe a little acting work if we need some stand-ins for a Sun TV News story — god rest its little black soul.
Kenney ended his stand up routine on Twitter with a sarcastic backhander to Bruce Anderson: “Thanks for the insight into the pettiness and vindictiveness of this government.”
Curry King had gone beyond comedy. It was now bladder-emptying farce. Twitter called him on it. A new hashtag was born: #CPCpetty.
The Twitter-sphere’s BS-o-meter twitched like a bisected snake. For two hours, the “reminders” of a decade of the Harper government’s sins and peccadilloes rained down on Banquet Boy like a monsoon. This was now not about the PCO, it was about everything. The bodies popped out of the ground like extras in a zombie flick.
The CPC was scorched for deleting all gun registry data and then backdating legislation to make it legal; blasted for falsely accusing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of doing something “unseemly” on the illegal appointment of Mark Nadon to the court; ripped for greeting Chinese panda bears at Pearson Airport instead of native walkers who endured a two-month march through the dead of winter from Hudson Bay to Ottawa; and denounced for keeping Green Party leader Elizabeth May out of climate conferences and TV debates….
On and on it went, a deluge pouring down on a man without an ark. And it was all well deserved.
When the Harper government was first elected, it started serving up lardoons to its buddies. Remember the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat, which was supposed to take the patronage out of the appointment process? It was a vital part of the CPC’s much-vaunted commitment to “accountability.” It was supposed to ensure that all federal appointments would be merit-based, instead of the old nose-to-bum conga line of patronage payback. A great idea.
There was only one problem. The first commissioner of the new department of government was chosen by Stephen Harper, his personal friend and prominent Conservative Gwyn Morgan. It was a head in toilet bowl moment for anyone who had actually trusted Harper.
Morgan’s appointment was blocked by opposition parties and Harper had a hissy fit. He scrapped the Public Appointments Commission but kept the Secretariat he had created to support it. As Greg Weston reported at the time, the bureaucracy burned through millions of taxpayer dollars — with nothing to do and no one to report to.
Patronage not in the CPC DNA? The Liberals petty and vindictive? Jason, you’re about to discover opposition is a lot harder when you have a dubious record of your own to defend.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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