way sooner rather than later and another conservative pundit criticized the PM’s minor shuffle as “sloppy political management” and an “enigmatic” communications strategy.
“I don’t think he would do it in the next month or two this summer simply because people would jump up and down and say, ‘You know it’s not what you told us.’ I’m sure there are those who are counselling him to do it simply because it would force every journalist in the country to come back from vacation but I just don’t see him doing it [soon] because it’s unnecessarily antagonistic,” said a Conservative insider. “On the other hand, it’s a great way to make news in the middle of summer, get a week’s worth of news. If you were going to do it, you’d probably do it a week before the caucus retreat.”
After weeks of Cabinet shuffle speculation in the media, former CIDA minister Bev Oda (Durham, Ont.) resigned as an MP, prompting further speculation on how big a shuffle Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) would conduct. In the end, on a Wednesday, July 4, at about 4:37 p.m., the Prime Minister’s Office sent out a press release stating that former associate Defence minister Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) would take over Ms. Oda’s duties as CIDA minister, and minister of state for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and La Francophonie Bernard Valcourt (Madawaska-Restigouche, N.B.) would take over as associate Defence minister.
The Conservative insider said last week Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) did so for strategic reasons and perhaps as well just to spite the media who had been for weeks making predictions of who would go where in a major shuffle that would see key government members being moved from their positions.
“It could be just to show once again the media were wrong, to add to the list of the number of times that they’ve gotten things wrong,” the insider said. “The other thing is, to have a major Cabinet shuffle sends a message. If he had had a major Cabinet shuffle, which is one of the arguments against it, then you would all be writing that the government decided on a complete rewrite, turfed out old and tired ministers and then we would’ve rehashed all the stories about why these were bad. That would a), bring those stories back on the front-burner again or at least it would give another opportunity to give another bash at them, and b), it would give credence to your criticisms and opposition criticism. By not doing anything, you kill a story and you don’t admit that there were any mistakes, at least any problems large enough to warrant a criticism.”
Summa Strategies vice-president Tim Powers, a Conservative pundit and former ministerial staffer, agreed last week that the underwhelming Cabinet shuffle was part of a strategy. He said it showed that despite the media’s frequent attempt to predict the future, Mr. Harper is the one who calls the shots.
“When it comes to setting the agenda on Cabinet-making the PM makes the call, no one else, regardless of the flurry of guessing about what was destined to unfold,” he said. “In some ways, this was all kind of clever from an agenda-setting perspective. Instead of a story about a significant, re-made Cabinet and comments on various ministers’ promotions or demotions, the story about ministers focuses on the departure of Oda which many see as a good thing. Also, the PM’s slight shuffle challenges the credibility of many who were on a speculative orgy about more significant change.”
Mr. Powers said, however, that Mr. Harper will most likely “adjust his talent accordingly” in the future, depending on the agenda he wants to drive.
“No organization that stays static stays successful. But as he proved [last] week he’ll do it his way and in his time,” Mr. Powers said. “It is always important to have new talent come forward and take on responsibility while mixing them with veteran performers. People will also retire and not run again which will allow for new entrants.”
Toronto Star syndicated national affairs columnist Chantal Hébert wrote that last week’s minor shuffle and ouster of Ms. Oda indicates that Mr. Harper’s IOUs to people who have helped the Conservative Party get to a majority government have expired and suggested that there could be a major shuffle in the works soon. “The debts of loyalty the Prime Minister has racked up along the way may be about to take a distant second place to the changing staffing needs of a majority government,” she wrote, also noting that Ms. Oda had to be pre-emptively taken out of Cabinet to maintain internal party discipline.
The Conservative insider agreed that it was more difficult to maintain discipline now than under a minority government, and especially under a newly-created party desperate to make more gains.
“It’s becoming more difficult because you’re not under the gun, you’re not under the minority gun. That’s the first thing. The other thing is a lot of the people who were very good at keeping caucus discipline, like [former government House leader and chief government whip] Jay Hill, are gone. Third thing is that the internal cohesion of the original Conservative Party which, as you recall, is basically the Reform Party or the Canadian Alliance plus a few PCs, the whole composition of the party has changed in the last 10 years,” the insider said. “Now you’ve got any number of MPs who don’t owe anything to Stephen Harper. They were not part of the caucus under the constant battle conditions of before. They are new to politics, and they are younger so they don’t have the same background and discipline that their older colleagues have and that goes back to lacking a Jay Hill, someone to take them aside. … So, it is more challenging.”
In an interview with Postmedia, Andrew MacDougall, the PMO’s communications director said last week’s shuffle was “the only change” Canadians would see to the Cabinet. “There will be no other changes,” he said. “This is Ottawa’s favourite parlour game — to try to be prime minister and try to figure out what they would do.”
Mr. MacDougall also said that the government has an agenda in place and is working on it. “Everybody is going to have a productive summer focusing on their work and making sure that we come back to Parliament in the fall ready to hit the ground running,” he said.
Mr. Harper reiterated that on Dave Rutherford’s radio show on July 5, saying that everyone still has a task to do from the assignments he gave them last year after the May 2 election.
“We have no plans of making big changes right now,” Mr. Harper said, also noting that rumours that Parliament will be prorogued are also false.
“To be honest, I thought about doing that, but some time ago I made a decision that I probably wouldn’t do it. I didn’t see any reason to do it right now,” he said. “We’ve still got a number of pieces of legislation we do want to pass. … We’ll probably have a new session mid-term when we’ll take a look at how everybody’s performing and make some major changes at that point, but I think between now and then, let’s keep everybody focused on the job we got elected to do, and the tasks I gave them to do last year.”
CTV’s Don Martin, host of Power Play, wrote last week that the Prime Minister’s public declaration that there won’t be another major Cabinet shuffle and Parliamentary prorogation until mid-term is “the dance of an evil genius,” because “by revealing his Cabinet-adjusting timetable to Calgary radio host Dave Rutherford on Thursday, he’s simultaneously cracked the whip of intensified discipline over insiders and outsiders.”
Mr. Martin wrote that the Prime Minister’s minor shuffle cautions the old guard to behave ethically or follow Ms. Oda into post-political oblivion and gives ambitious hope of getting into Cabinet “provided they continue to read their PMO talking points with conviction, enthusiasm and suitable deference to the Supreme Leader.”
National Post columnist John Ivison wrote last week that Mr. Harper is giving the impression that he’s satisfied with all of his ministers’ performances.
“If that is the case, he is, perhaps, in a minority of one,” Mr. Ivison wrote. “Mr. Harper seems to enjoy confounding the critics—and even expectations in his own caucus. But there is a sense within that caucus that if the Prime Minister was telling the truth when he said he doesn’t foresee major changes to his government, he may not have been telling the whole truth.”
University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, who served as Mr. Harper’s chief of staff as leader of the official opposition, and recently managed the campaign of Alberta Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith, described the minimal Cabinet shuffle as part of a wider trend of “sloppy political management” and an “enigmatic” communications strategy.
“I find it hard to take this seriously. You take Fantino out of military procurement, which has been extremely troubled. I’m not blaming him for it, but he didn’t fix it. Then you put him into another troubled portfolio to try to fix the problems in CIDA,” Prof. Flanagan told The Hill Times. “You take Bernie Valcourt, who has two basically political, non-jobs—La Francophonie and the Atlantic Opportunities Agency—and you give him military procurement. This is just a demonstration that these are non-jobs. How can somebody do three real jobs?”
Prof. Flanagan also pointed to the confused messaging over Bill C-38 and EI, OAS and immigration reforms as examples of a “baffling” communications strategy, and described recent comments against the government by Conservative MPs David Wilks (Kootenay-Columbia, B.C.), Brent Rathgeber (Edmonton-St. Alberta, Alta.), and John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, N.B.) as “unprecedented breakdowns in caucus unity.”
“They’re not really serious by historical standards for other parties, but for this party to have three different episodes of caucus members going off message, being critical of their own party, suggests that somebody isn’t minding the shop,” Mr. Flanagan said. “You don’t keep people together with threats, so much as talking with them, making sure they’re on side, and that their concerns are dealt with. When you start getting these outbursts that’s a sign that caucus management isn’t what it should be.”
Meanwhile, another Conservative insider said, however, that the caucus is still behind Mr. Harper’s leadership and united. “Bottom line, I don’t think much has changed. The Cabinet shuffle was largely driven by the media and there’s no unease within the caucus about where the government’s going, about the poll numbers, nothing of that sort. There’s no election around the corner. There’s no public opinion that’s pushing for change,” the insider said.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH, CHRIS PLECASH
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