Kory Teneycke — perhaps most famous in his young life for getting Corncob Bob on to the Jon Stewart show [I'd link to the item but here in Canada, CTV, which carries Stewart's shows, won't let Canadians link through. If you're from the States or somewhere else, though, watch of one of Rob Corddry's finest moments] while he was the exec director of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association — opened up his second day in the Langevin Block as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new Director of Communications by meeting with the chiefs of the big news bureaus here in Ottawa — Canwest, Canadian Press, the Globe, CBC, CTV and so on.
Teneycke is succeeding Sandra Buckler, a communications director who placed less value on winning the hearts and minds of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and more on serving the strategic goals of her boss. Tory blogger Stephen Taylor uses a nice metaphor: Where Buckler was Harper's shield, Teneycke may be his sword.
Some say Buckler's tenure was terrible; others say it was terrific.
Whatever your view, there's no getting around the fact that the Brodie-Buckler version of the PMO (former Chief of Staff Ian Brodie resigned about the same time) finished up with their boss at almost exactly the same point in the polls as he did when he arrived in January, 2006. In other words there hasn't been a lot of growth in political support for the Conservatives though they've had all the advantages of being in office for two years.
So now we have PMO: The Giorno-Teneycke version. (Guy Giorno replaced Brodie as Harper's chief of staff). So far as we've been able to determine, the mission for Giorno will be largely a political one: Get Harper ready for the next election, which will certainly come by the fall of 2009 and, in my view, has a slim chance of happening this fall.
Teneycke will play a key role in carrying out Giorno's mission and, so far, it seems as if he's going to do that by taking an approach that will be remarkably different than the one taken by Buckler. Buckler – who once famously responded to a reporter's query by saying “Off the record: No Comment” — preferred as little interaction with the press as possible, not only for the prime minister, but for all ministers and MPs. Teneycke appears to prefer more engagement and more candour though I suspect he will build on the remarkable communications discipline Buckler has drilled in to the Tory troops.
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