Cabinet shuffles get a lot of attention in the mainstream media and appropriately so: Those moves can tell a voter a lot about the direction of the federal government and the kinds of priorities the government is working on.
But here, inside the Parliament Hill bubble, journalists, lobbyists and political staffers also pay a great deal of attention to who's doing the political work in the Prime Minister's Office and in each minister's office. The choices made by these people — known as ministerial “exempt staff” can also help a sharp-eyed observer get a sense of what's going on in the government. They are called “exempt staff” because they are exempt from the regular hiring procedures of the civil service and are appointed at the minister's pleasure to do the political work that a minister must deal with.
Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt has, what seems to me, to be a pretty reasonably sized “exempt staff” with pretty common positions, such as Chief of Staff, Director of Communications, and Director of Parliamentary Affairs. You can check out her political staff roster here. But Raitt, to use one example among many in cabinet, has also seen a lot of staff turnover in her office. Most famously, Raitt had to let her former Director of Communications Jasmine MacDonnell go after that famous tape incident. But staff members leave ministers' offices all the time. Some times they want to leave; some times they don't.
Ottawa insiders, though, will tell you that more come and go partly because of the Conservatives' Federal Accountability Act, which prohibits these staffers from signing up as lobbyists for five years after their employment. For better or worse, that's cut down on the potential labour pool for staffers and its also meant that, by and large, staffers tend to be young and inexperienced. You might find an experienced lobbyist in town who might make an invaluable policy advisor to a given minister but even if that mid-career or late-career lobbyist was ready to take a big pay cut in the name of some political cause in order to join the minister's office, it is a very special kind of lobbyist who can afford to write off five years in the business once s/he leaves the minister's office.
So, with all the staff changes at the political level, Liberal MP John McCallum wondered what it's been costing taxpayers when exempt staff get fired/resigned, as MacDonnell and many others have, or negotiate a severance during the the last two years of the Conservative government and so he tabled an Order Paper question. It was returned (answered) on Dec. 7. Here's the Q-and-A:
Question No. 477–
Hon. John McCallum:
With respect to section 3.7 of the Treasury Board’s Policies and Guidelines for Ministers’ Offices, between October 19, 2007 and October 19, 2009 what is the total amount of funds dispersed from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay for: (a) severance pay for departing exempt staff of the combined Cabinet including the Prime Minister’s Office, all Ministers’ offices and all Ministers of States’ offices; and (b) separation pay for departing exempt staff of the combined Cabinet including the Prime Minister’s Office, all Ministers’ offices and all Ministers of States’ offices?
Hon. Vic Toews (President of the Treasury Board, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, between October 19, 2007 and October 19, 2009 the total amounts of funds dispersed from the consolidated revenue fund to pay for severance and separation pay for departing exempt staff of the combined cabinet including the Prime Minister’s Office, all ministers’ offices and all ministers of states’ offices were (a) $2,013,300, and (b) $4,907,032 respectively.
For those who are interested, here's more info.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/canada/2009/12/09/12092141-sun.html#/news/canada/2009/12/09/pf-12088656.html