Month: July 2008

Prospect magazine says half a million people around the world took part in its poll to find the world's top public intellectual. Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff was the only Canadian to make the list. He ranked 34th (up from 37th in a previous poll.)

Notably, “every name in the top ten would be from a Muslim background. (Noam Chomsky, who won the last poll in 2005, led the west in 11th place this time.),” the magazine says. The number one public intellectual as voted by the readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy? Fethullah Gülen, (right) “a Turkish Sufi cleric, barely known in the west.” The magazine then tries to figure out how Fethullah ended up on top and says:

On 1st May, Zaman—the highest-selling newspaper in Turkey, with a circulation of over 700,000 and a string of international editions—ran a story on its front page alerting its readership to the appearance of Gülen on the Prospect/FP list, and to the fact that we were inviting people to vote. Zaman is known to be close to the Gülen movement, and over the coming weeks the paper made regular reference to the cleric’s appearance on our list. The poll was also noted in other Turkish newspapers, as well as on every single Gülen website, official and unofficial, we were able to find.

The efficiency and discipline of the Fethullahçi is legendary—so in retrospect, for them, a poll like ours was simple to hijack. The temptation for Gülen’s followers to elevate their man to the top of a poll organised by two influential western magazines will have been a strong one. In one respect, then, Gülen’s crushing win tells us little about what the world thinks about its intellectuals; it merely exhibits the organisational ability of one movement’s followers. On the other hand, perhaps we can see through Gülen’s victory the emergence of a new kind of intellectual—one whose influence is expressed through a personal network, aided by the internet, rather than publications or institutions.

Technorati Tags: intellectuals, philosophy, michael ignatieff

I missed these personnel changes — they're about a week old — but I figure if I missed them others did, too. So with that …

The big changes in the Prime Minister's Office, of course, are a new chief of staff, Guy Giorno, and a new director of communications director, Kory Teneycke. But one that, in my view, is just as significant is the elevaton of Ray Novak. Novak is now Harper's Principal Secretary. That position did not previously exist in the PMO. Novak is the first to hold the job. It's still unclear what the Principal Secretary will do for the reconfigured PMO but principal secretarys have often played a more politicial role. Jim Coutts, for example, was Pierre Trudeau's influential principal secretary from 1975 to 1981.

Novak had been Stephen Harper's executive assistant since way back. If you've ever watched a live broadcast of the PM speaking, Novak's the guy you'll say placing Harper's text on the podium just before he speaks. But Novak is much more than just the guy who carries Harper's papers. He has been an influential voice in Harper's ear, the last guy the PM sees at the end of the day and first guy the PM sees at the beginning of the day.

Here's how The Globe and Mail described Novak shortly after the Harper formed the government:

Mr. Novak is the intense and bespectacled young man who is usually standing close to Mr. Harper. As executive assistant, he is one of the Prime Minister's schedulers, fixers and gatekeepers. Mr. Novak is from the Ottawa Valley, and at age 24 helped work on a research project for Mr. Harper when he was the head of the National Citizens Coalition. Mr. Novak was working on his master's thesis on parliamentary reform at the University of Calgary, and was recommended for the project by Rainer Knopff, a political-science professor at Mr. Harper's alma mater, the University of Calgary. Mr. Novak was part of Mr. Harper's team when he won the leadership of the Canadian Alliance in 2002.

So far as I know, a new executive assistant for Harper has not yet been named.

Meanwhile, over in Environment Minister John Baird's office, press secretary Eric Richer is wrapping his tenure as a political communicator and heading back to the public service. Richer had been doing communicatins for the Governor General when he moved from there (a civil service job) to become the press secretary for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. He went from there to Baird's office. Now he's heading back to the civil service to work at the Department of Natural Resources.

Richer will be replaced by Chris Day, a television reporter with CTV Ottawa. Day most recently had been reporting on the Khwaja Trial. He'll start work with Baird early next month. Here's his bio from CTV's site:

Chris Day started his broadcast career in radio at the age of 17 – first, as a part-time news announcer for CKQB-FM (The BEAR), then as a freelance documentary producer for CBC. He joined CTV News in 2001. He now works as a reporter as well as a substitute anchor and producer. When he isn’t toiling at CTV, Chris volunteers countless hours to various charitable undertakings and causes that matter most to him. He also loves travelling. From cycling, hiking and canoeing in the summer to downhill skiing in the winter, you can often find Chris spending days off in the Gatineau Hills. Chris is a graduate of the Carleton School of Journalism. He was born and raised in Ottawa and counts himself lucky to work close to family and friends.

Technorati Tags: conservatives, ray novak, Stephen Harper

One curious Canadian with an apparent obsession with the CBC has single-handedly forced that Crown corporation to more than double the number of employees in its access-to-information department.

The individual, whose identity cannot legally be revealed, sent 448 separate requests for information from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the four-month period between Sept. 1, 2007 and the end of the year. The CBC first became subject to federal access-to-information laws on Sept. 1 and, to date, has now received 604 requests — and almost all of them are from that same one individual.

The CBC, the Canadian Wheat Board, and more than 65 other federal agencies, crown corporations and institutions became subject last fall to federal access to information laws as part of the Conservative government’s Federal Accountability Act. The CBC hired three people to handle the access requests it expected to receive. There are now seven people working in that department.

“It’s been a very difficult situation that the office has been facing,” sasid Katherine Heath-Eves, a spokesperson for CBC. “But a request is a request and each one has to be treated fairly. We take all of this extremely seriously.”

But so far, the CBC requester appears to be entirely unsatisifed with the service — even with the addition of four employees. According to a briefing note obtained, coincidentally enough, under an access-to-information request, the CBC requester filed 524 separate complaints in 2007 with the federal Information Commissioner. Those 524 complaints accounted for nearly one-quarter of commissioner Robert Marleau’s record caseload last year of 2,387 complaints … [Read the rest of the story]

Technorati Tags: Access to Information, CBC

I recently received copies of some of the House Cards prepared last spring for Treasury Board President Vic Toews.

One of the House Cards, prepared by Treasury Board Senior Communications Strategist Fanny Lemieux (and approved by TBS Chief Information Officer Ken Cochrane), addresses the the complaint that, because complaints about the Access to Information system have doubled, the government must be restricting access.

Lemieux's suggested response for Toews is, not surprisingly, to let him know that “… the government has been effective, accessible and transparent” with requests.

Lemieux then includes this remarkable paragraph in the background for Toews:

“At a … meeting of the [Access to Information] communty in February 2008, Ms. Andrew Neill, Assistant Commissioner, stated that 60 per cent of complaints are made by 10 complainants. For example, the CBC refers to an article in which a frequent requester stated that since September 2007, he made 448 requests to the CBC and since he was not satisfied with the responses, he filed 524 complaints with the Information Commissioner concerning those requests. The same individual makes about 1,200 requests for information each year to various organizations.”

That can't be cheap. You must pay $5 for each request you submit. So that's $6,000 a year asking the government questions! Wow.

On a related note, my friend Gloria Galloway describes the Brazil-like world that is the federal ATI system …

Technorati Tags: Access to Information

I don't know why they're here or where they're coming from, but ever since I posted a picture (right) I took at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show of a Mercedes SmartCar, it has consistently been among the top 20 posts every month around here. And, sure enough, among the 76,000-plus individuals who dropped by this blog at least once last month, the SmartCar was the top pick. Here are the other most popular posts here for last month, with the date they were posted here in brackets.

1. Mercedes' SmartCar (Thu 20 Jan 2005 01:03 PM EST)
2. The latest FUD from the federal Tories — (Sun 08 Jun 2008 12:54 PM EDT)
3. First Dion ad spotted in the wild! (Tue 10 Jun 2008 03:31 PM EDT)
4. The scrums: Poilievre and Martin on the Dion extension (Tue 03 Jun 2008 04:42 PM EDT)
5. F-35 – Test Flight (Wed 10 Jan 2007 03:07 PM EST)
6. Tory army on the move (Mon 09 Jun 2008 02:03 PM EDT)
7. Wheat Board politics: Ritz vs Goodale (Mon 09 Jun 2008 12:50 PM EDT)
8. The death of Red Rock (Tue 10 Jun 2008 02:49 PM EDT)
9. George Packer on the fall of (U.S.) Conservatism (Sun 01 Jun 2008 01:23 PM EDT)
10. Politicking in Guelph (Thu 12 Jun 2008 04:11 PM EDT)
11. How to ask a Prime Minister a question (Thu 19 Jun 2008 10:36 PM EDT)
12. More on car rebates (Mon 26 Mar 2007 08:34 PM EDT)
13. The TSX media centre (Thu 01 Apr 2004 10:38 AM EST)
14. Happy birthday, Mr. Sleeman (Sat 31 May 2008 06:18 PM EDT)
15. Alexa McDonough will not stand for re-election (Mon 02 Jun 2008 09:50 AM EDT)
16. “Who is Gordon Brown?” (Sat 13 Oct 2007 05:33 PM EDT)
17. The RAF's C-17 Globemaster (Fri 11 Aug 2006 09:25 PM EDT)
18. Why Privacy Matters: The case of Deutsche Telekom (Tue 03 Jun 2008 11:12 AM EDT)
19. PM welcomes PM (Sat 31 May 2008 08:09 PM EDT)
20. Your new British Columbia cabinet (Mon 23 Jun 2008 10:10 PM EDT