David Akin’s On The Hill

The Ottawa press gallery is filled with many capable veteran reporters and, in advance of any major event such as a budget or a cabinet shuffle, some wag in the gallery is often able to ferret out some advance details. Not so with the composition of Stephen Harper’s first cabinet. Many of my gallery colleagues — some of whom have sources they’ve been developing since the days of Pearson — say the Conservatives are running a very tight leak-proof ship.

I say all that as set-up to what I’ll call some informed speculation about who might and might not be in Harper’s first cabinet. None of what follows we know for sure. What follows is the result of my own consideration and triangulation after a series of interviews this week with party officials, Conservative MPs, party strategists and other journalists — none of whom are members of the small transition team that will actually make the cabinet decisions with Harper. None of those individuals I spoke to would agree to be named. Some hope to be in cabinet. Most are the type that work only on background.

So what do we know?

Well, first of all, there seems to be broad agreement among the chattering classes that Harper’s cabinet will be smaller than Martin’s. Martin ended his term with 38 cabinet ministers. Harper will have fewer. But how many is fewer? The most popular opinion around Ottawa is that fewer in Harper’s world means a cabinet of about 30 people. But at the end of this week and with the swearing-in set for 11 am Ottawa time on Monday, I have been told by well-placed sources to think much lower than that — perhaps as few as 25 ministers or even something radically smaller like 20 cabinet ministers.

There are some other parameters within which Harper will make his cabinet picks. Because Harper will have to stick some basic rules, we can come up right way with 10 sure-fire bet-the-house cabinet ministers. But before we do that, here are the parameters:

• The Deputy Prime Minister will not be Peter Mackay. Mackay, who is his party’s deputy leader, is very popular in his caucus and very popular among other MPs. But even those who are his fans admit that he sometimes has had trouble singing from the same hymn book as his leader. If the Prime Minister leaves the country, for example, the last thing Harper wants to do when he gets off the plane is put out some fires back home because his deputy PM had trouble staying “on message.”  For that reason alone, Mackay cannot be deputy PM.
• If the above isn’t enough to rule out Mackay as Deputy PM, he will be ruled out for strategic reasons, namely, the post of deputy PM will be used to consolidate and build on that surprising electoral support in Quebec. So,  who among the crop of rookie Quebec MPs — remember, the Tories had not a single seat in the province prior to Jan. 23 — will be deputy PM? Step forward, Lawrence Cannon, MP for Pontiac, and, before the election, Harper’s deputy chief of staff. Cannon was also a provincial cabinet minister in the government of Robert Bourassa.
• Harper, like all prime ministers, wants a cabinet that, as near as possible, represents the country. That means at least one cabinet minister from each province except for Prince Edward Island. (All four of PEI’s MPs are Liberals). So, if there must be at least one cabinet minister from each province, here are those bet-the-house cabinet candidates:
• Newfoundland and Labrador: Loyola Hearn (St. John’s South-Mount Pearl)
• Nova Scotia: Peter Mackay (Central Nova)
• New Brunswick: Greg Thompson (New Brunswick Southwest)
• Quebec: Lawrence Cannon (Pontiac)
• Ontario: Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls)
• Manitoba: Vic Toews (Provencher)
• Saskatchewan: Carol Skelton (Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar)
• Alberta: Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest)
• British Columbia: Jay Hill (Prince George-Peace River)
• Harper will appoint a Senator to his cabinet.  This Senator will be the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Good guess on this one might be Hugh Segal although I’m told Segal has agreed to do some of the “colour commentary” for the swearing-in ceremony on Monday. If he’s agreed to do that, does he already know he won’t be in cabinet? On the other hand, if he’s tapped to lead the government in the Senate on Sunday afternoon, he can always cancel his TV duties. If it’s not Hugh Segal, look to Marjory LeBreton to take this cabinet position.
• Alberta, I am told by several, will have three people sitting in cabinet. One, obviously, is Harper. At least one other will be Rona Ambrose (Edmonton-Spruce Grove). That leaves one more slot. Some believe Harper cannot ignore Diane Ablonczy (Calgary-Nose Hill).  On merit alone, she should be in the cabinet but she has two other strategic “pluses” — she’s a woman in a caucus that has too few women and she’s personally very close to Harper, having been the one who, famously, introduced a certain Laureen Teskey to a certain Stephen Harper. That said, I’ve heard from at least two sources that she will not be in cabinet in favour of Monte Solberg. Personally, I have trouble believing that Harper will be able to ignore the excellent work Jim Prentice (Calgary Centre-North) has done as Indian Affairs critic. So my handicapping of the Alberta slots runs this way: Harper, Ambrose, Ablonczy, Prentice, Solberg.  Some Conservatives who know more than I do tell my I’m flat wrong that the Alberta rankings as of Thursday night go: Harper, Ambrose, Solberg, Ablonczy, Prentice. In any event, in a 20–member cabinet, a maximum of two (and possibly only one) of the following get a seat at that table: Ablonczy, Solberg, Prentice, and Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast). Not even rating a cabinet mention at this stage are several other Alberta MPs who, if they represented ridings elsewhere in the country would rate some consideration. They are: Rick Casson (Lethbridge), Rahim Jaffer (Edmonton-Strathcona), Ted Menzies (Macleod), Bob Mills (Red Deer), Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East), James Rajotte (Edmonton-Leduc), and John Williams (Edmonton-St. Albert).
• As for portfolios — Monte Solberg will not be doing finance. The smart money is on Jim Flaherty, who did the  finance thing when he was in the provincial cabinet of former Ontario premier Mike Harris. Now that’s where the smart money is but me — I guess I’m dumb money — I believe it will not be Flaherty and could well be someone like Rob Nicholson. Whoever holds finance will not come from Alberta and would likely come from Ontario.
• Vic Toews will not be justice minister. Though Toews is a former attorney general for Manitoba, he has, during his tenure as critic, boxed himself in from a policy perspective on some contentious issues for that file — same-sex marriage is an obvious one but he has been too hawkish on some other criminal justice issues. Someone who is perceived to be a bit more moderate may get justice — Peter Mackay is a possibility as he is a former Crown prosecutor and Justice would be decent consolation prize for not being Deputy PM. Still I think Mackay will end up with defence because …
• Gordon O’Connor may not be in cabinet, let alone defence. O’Connor, a former general, was the party’s defence critic in the last Parliament but lses in the Cabinet numbers game. Ontario will have between four and eight MPs and three are reserved for high-profile rookies – John Baird, Jim Flaherty, and Tony Clement. One is reserved for Nicholson, who was whip in the last Parliament, and was actually a f
  ederal cabinet minister, albeit for about 20 minutes when Kim Campbell was Prime Minister. After those four, I would put Ontario MPs like Diane Finley, Bev Oda, and Mike Chong and perhaps even Scott Reid ahead of O’Connor on the Ontario depth chart. If O’Connor does make it in, his most recent private sector work was as a defence industry lobbyist and that makes it problematic from a conflict-of-interest standpoint for him to be defence minister.  

OK — so who’s in the cabinet? Here’s my best guesses.

If the cabinet consist of just 20 members it will be. Possible portfolios are in italics. Guessing portfolios is almost ridiculously risky but kind of fun. I feel pretty good standing behind the picks I’ve made for people but very dodgy when it comes to the portfolios they might hold:

1. Stephen Harper – Calgary Southwest – Prime Minister / Intergovernmental Affairs
2. Hugh Segal – Senator – Ontario – Leader of the Government in the Senate
3. Lawrence Cannon – – Pontiac – Deputy Prime Minister  / Environment / Social Development
4. Peter Mackay – Central Nova – Defence / Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
5. Rob Nicholson – Niagara Falls – Finance
6. Rona Ambrose – Edmonton-Spruce Grove – Foreign Affairs and International Trade
7. Tony Clement – Parry Sound Muskoka – Justice / FEDNOR
8. John Baird – Ottawa West-Nepean – Health
9. Vic Toews – Provencher – Natural Resources / Agriculture
10. Jay Hill – Prince George-Peace River – Government House Leader
11. Greg Thompson – New Brunswick Southwest – Labour and Housing / ACOA
12. Carol Skelton – Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar – Human Resources / Status of Women / Canadian Wheat Board
13. Loyola Hearn – St. John’s South-Mount Pearl – Fisheries / National Revenue
14. Stockwell Day – Okanagan-Coquihalla – Veterans Affairs
15. Josee Verner – Louis St. Laurent – Canadian Heritage / International Cooperation /
16. Maxime Bernier – Beauce – Transport / Industry / Economic Development for the Regions of Quebec
17. Jim Flaherty – Whitby-Oshawa – Treasury Board
18. James Moore – Port Moody–Westwood–Port Coquitlam – Public Works / Western Economic Diversification
19. Diane Ablonczy– Calgary-Nose Hill – Citizensh
    ip and Immigration
20. Jim Prentice – Calgary-Centre North – Indian Affairs and Northern Development

In this 20 member cabinet there are:

• Four women
• Five from Ontario, four from Alberta, three each from Quebec, British Columbia, and three from Atlantic Canada

If the cabinet consists of 25 members, it would include those plus the following. Possible portfolios are italicized:

1. Monte Solberg – Public Works OR Foreign Affairs and International Trade
2. Bev Oda – Human Resources OR Canadian Heritage OR Citizenship and Immigration
3. Steven Fletcher – Natural Resources
4. Lynne Yelich – Veterans Affairs / Canadian Wheat Board
5. Jean-Pierre Blackburn – International Co-operation / Economic Develompent for the Regions of Quebec

In this 25 member cabinet there then would be:

• Six women
• Six from Ontario, five from Alberta and four from Quebec, and three from British Columbia and from Atlantic Canada.

If the cabinet consists of 30 members, here are the additional five:

1. Betty Hinton – National Revenue
2. Jason Kenney – Calgary Southeast – Public Works
3. Bill Casey – Veterans Affairs
4. Diane Finley – Agriculture
5. Gordon O’Connor – Natural Resources

In this 30–member cabinet, there would be:

• Eight women
• Eight from Ontario, six from Alberta, four from Quebec, B.C. and Atlantic Canada.

On the bench, ready to come in the game in case any of these prove unsuitable, we might find:

• Norman Doyle
• Mike Chong
• Helena Guergis
• Gary Lunn
• Scott Reid
• Garth Turner

When they move out of the Parliament Hill offices reserved for Opposition politicians and their staffers, the Conservatives will leave the rooms completely empty except for the furniture and a small box of files. The small box of files will be left behind for the Liberals who will now occupy the Opposition benches.

This small box of files, I am reliably informed by my Conservative moles, will be labelled “SECRET HIDDEN AGENDA” and, once they open them up, the Liberal staffers who inherit these Conservative offices, will find all seven volumes of the Gomery Inquiry.

 

My colleague Robert Fife is reporting that Frank McKenna will not run to lead the Liberal Party of Canada. McKenna had announced last week that he would resign his post as Canada’s Ambassador to the United States. McKenna had been appointed, of course, by the Paul Martin government and, with Stephen Harper taking over as Prime Minister next week, McKenna thought he would be less effective as ambassador.

McKenna is a former premier of New Brunswick and was widely seen as the front runner to replace Martin, who annnounced on election night he was going to step down.

 

A senior Conservative strategist circulated the following Top Ten list e-mail on the Saturday before the federal election on Monday, January 23. The result of the election, of course, was a narrow Conservative minority government.

THE LIBERALS’ TOP TEN SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS

10. Billions in pre-campaign announcements.

9. Free ride for Harper before Christmas.

8. Beer & Popcorn and the Klander Komics

7. Dissing Charest & attempting to “Referendize” the campaign in Quebec.

6. Buzz Off: Strategic voting/Harper as separatist.

5. Notwithstanding.

4. “We’re not making this up.”

3. Great battle plan for last war: Expected Harper to be negative/lunatics rampant

2. All tactics, no strategy.

1. The Liberals brought a knife to a gunfight.

Just about every day, Sean McCormack (left), spokesman for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, holds a Q & A session with reporters who cover the State Department or who have a specific interest in the relationship between the U.S. and one or more countries in the world. And so it was that, at his briefing on Jan. 24, McCormack was asked about the results of the Canadian federal election. The transcript — provided by the State Department — of his remarks follows below. Nothing earth-shattering in it but an interesting exchange nonetheless:

QUESTION: Change of subject? Any parting words for Paul Martin?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You caught me off guard there for a second.

 QUESTION: He's not dead. But he's gone.

 MR. MCCORMACK: Shocking. You know, the Canadian elections have taken place. The
 Canadian people have spoken, and the — I believe that there's going to be a
 new government in Canada led by Mr. Harper. We look forward to working with Mr.
 Harper and his government, just as we would look forward to working with all —
 any Canadian government. Canada is a good friend, a good friend and ally, and
 we look forward to strengthening our already strong bonds, and that we
 certainly wish Mr. Martin well. I believe that he's going to continue to
 participate in political life. We had a good working relationship with the
<!–D(["mb","  Prime Minister. The Secretary went to Ottawa just a short time ago, a couple
 months ago. She had good meetings with him there. And that certainly his voice
 will continue to be heard in Canada.

 QUESTION: But the new government is already — has already spoken openly about
 trying to improve relations with the United States, not that they\'re not great,
 but that of course you can always improve, right? So is that something that you
 believe will happen, that these already strong bonds will be strengthened with
 Mr. Harper\'s arrival?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You know, again, we look forward to working with — working with
 the new government. If there are opportunities to work on areas, resolve areas
 of disagreement, of course we look forward to doing that. That\'s something that
 we worked with Prime Minister Martin\'s government on as well. In any
 relationship that\'s this close and this important, you\'re going to have areas
 of disagreement. We talk in an open manner about those areas of disagreement.
 We talk in an atmosphere of mutual respect about those areas of disagreement.

 And I expect that over the coming months and years there are going to be issues
 which we can work well with the Canadian Government on and there are going to
 be areas where we continue to have differences. So we\'ll see. We look forward
 to working with Mr. Harper\'s government and look forward to building on the
 already strong foundation that we have.

 QUESTION: Do you think the missile defense question may be reopened under a
 Harper government?

 MR. MCCORMACK: We\'ll see. We think that, you know, our views — our views on
 missile defense cooperation are well known. If it\'s something that the Canadian
 Government wants to talk about, I think of course we\'d be open to talking about
“,1]);//–> Prime Minister. The Secretary went to Ottawa just a short time ago, a couple
 months ago. She had good meetings with him there. And that certainly his voice
 will continue to be heard in Canada.

 QUESTION: But the new government is already — has already spoken openly about
 trying to improve relations with the United States, not that they're not great,
 but that of course you can always improve, right? So is that something that you
 believe will happen, that these already strong bonds will be strengthened with
 Mr. Harper's arrival?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You know, again, we look forward to working with — working with
 the new government. If there are opportunities to work on areas, resolve areas
 of disagreement, of course we look forward to doing that. That's something that
 we worked with Prime Minister Martin's government on as well. In any
 relationship that's this close and this important, you're going to have areas
 of disagreement. We talk in an open manner about those areas of disagreement.
 We talk in an atmosphere of mutual respect about those areas of disagreement.

 And I expect that over the coming months and years there are going to be issues
 which we can work well with the Canadian Government on and there are going to
 be areas where we continue to have differences. So we'll see. We look forward
 to working with Mr. Harper's government and look forward to building on the
 already strong foundation that we have.

 QUESTION: Do you think the missile defense question may be reopened under a
 Harper government?

 MR. MCCORMACK: We'll see. We think that, you know, our views — our views on
 missile defense cooperation are well known. If it's something that the Canadian
 Government wants to talk about, I think of course we'd be open to talking about
<!–D(["mb","  it.

 QUESTION: Would you initiate that in any way or ask for a reconsideration?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I\'m not sure that it\'s something that we would raise. I think we
 certainly remain open to talking about that as well as other issues.

 Yes.

 QUESTION: President Bush will meet on Friday with Lebanon member of parliament
 Saad Hariri. Is Secretary Rice expecting to meet with Mr. Hariri and can you
 tell us anything about this visit and the timing of it?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I believe — I have to check her schedule, but I believe she is
 going to be meeting with him. I\'ll double-check that for you.

 QUESTION: Okay. Can I have one more question?

 MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm.

 QUESTION: President Assad of Syria gave an important speech, I think last
 Friday, and he said he will not allow any demarcation of borders between Syria
 and Lebanon because this will serve the interests of Israel. And another issue,
 he said that he will not accept giving an interview to the UN investigating
 team in the assassination of Hariri because the sovereignty of Syria, as he
 said, is more important than or beyond any resolution from the Security
 Council. Do you have any reaction to this?

 MR. MCCORMACK: Well, on the second of those, 1636, which compels Syria to
 cooperate with the UNIIC investigation, is a Chapter 7 resolution. What that
 means is it is required — it\'s not optional — for states under Chapter 7
 resolutions to comply with the terms of those resolutions. We continue to urge
 Syria to comply with all aspects of 1636 an
d 1595. To date, they have not fully
 cooperated. That is, I believe, a source of disappointment, shall I say, among
 the members of the international community.

 Syria has also failed to comply with all aspects of Resolution 1559. There was
“,1]);//–> it.

 QUESTION: Would you initiate that in any way or ask for a reconsideration?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I'm not sure that it's something that we would raise. I think we
 certainly remain open to talking about that as well as other issues.

 Yes.

Google Inc. is coming under fire in some quarters for agreeing to tailor  — censor, is the operative word for some — its services so that they do not offend the government of China. China is the world’s second largest Internet market and Google is keen to be a part of that market:

Google said on Tuesday it will block politically sensitive terms on its new China search site and not offer e-mail, chat and blog publishing services, which authorities fear can become flashpoints for social or political protest. Those actions go further than many of its biggest rivals in China.

“I didn't think I would come to this conclusion—but eventually I came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see,” Brin told Reuters in an interview in Switzerland.

Google, whose high-minded corporate motto is “Don't be evil,” had previously refused to comply with Internet censorship demands by Chinese authorities, rules that must be met in order to locate business operations inside China—the world's No. 2 Internet market. [ Source: Reuters via PC Magazine, Jan. 26, 2006]

To illustrate the “information distortions” that Google is allowing as it seeks to expand in China, Sidney Karin, director emeritus at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, takes a look at the results returned when you search for images with a “tiananmen” tag at Google China and compares that to the results you get with the identical search at the Google everyone else in the world uses. Remarkable.

The syntax, incidentally, is nearly identical for both searches but a different Google server is being queried each time.

The syntax for Google China:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen

The synatx for Google everyone else:
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen

Oddly enough though, as Sam Smith points out, the query returns identical results, regardless of the server, if you capitalize Tiananmen.

These results seemed identical at 6:30 pm EDT on Jan. 29:

The syntax for Google China:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=Tiananmen

The synatx for Google everyone else:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Tiananmen

Google’s senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin tries to explain the rationale behind the company’s decision. “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely,” McLaughline writes.

 

“…according to [our] polls, there is no stigma associated with Stalin today. In fact, many Russians hold ambivalent or even positive views of him. For example, one-quarter or more of Russian adults say they would definitely or probably vote for Stalin were he alive and running for president, and less than 40 percent say they definitely would not. A majority of young Russians, moreover, do not view Stalin — a man responsible for millions of deaths and enormous suffering — with the revulsion he deserves. Although Stalinism per se is not rampant in Russia today, misperceptions about the Stalin era are. Few of the respondents to our surveys could be classified as hard-core Stalinists, but fewer still are hard-core anti-Stalinists. Most Russians, in other words, flunk the Stalin test.”

From “Failing the Stalin Test”
Sarah E. Mendelson and Theodore P. Gerber
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006

The Airbus A319 carrying Conservative leader Stephen Harper in seat A-1 has
just touched down in Calgary.
Earlier in the campaign, journalists had dubbed the plane Mr. Happy's Flying
Circus. It was meant to be an ironic recognition of the early Liberal
strategy of painting Harper as too angry to be PM.
And yet, if the latest polls hold, we will be flying back to Ottawa Tuesday
with someone in A-1 who truly is Mr. Happy.
Harper headquarters will be the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary.
Harper himself has already voted — he did the deed back in Ottawa —
mailing in his ballot at a post office box near Stornaway.
Laureen Harper, however, has not voted and will do so at 2:45 pm. That will
be the last we'll see of the couple today until the time comes for his
concession or victory speech.
An exciting day, to be sure, for political junkies. I just wish I didn't
wake up this morning with a whopper of a cold.
DAVID AKIN
————————–
CELL: +1 613 220 7935
Blog:
http://david-akin.electionblog.ctv.ca
Full contact info:
http://www.davidakin.com

The campaign is over for Stephen Harper. He closed out his rally speech and
his campaign with these words:
“Stand up for Canada! Thank you very much for your effort! Merci beaucoup!”
The Harper campaign will spend the night in Vancouver and then fly to
Calgary. The plan right now is for wheels up at Vancouver at 1030 Pacific
on Monday and wheels down in Calgary at 1300 Mountain time.
DAVID AKIN
————————–
CELL: +1 613 220 7935
Blog:
http://david-akin.electionblog.ctv.ca
Full contact info:
http://www.davidakin.com

We are in a community centre in Sydney, B.C., near Victoria. There are over
1,000 in the room.
The races on Vancouver Island will be tight ones and mostly between the NDP
and the Conservatives. Gary Lunn, John Duncan, and James Lunney are the
three Conservative incumbents. Duncan and Lunney are in tough, particularly,
against NDP challengers.
Jack Layton has campaigned extensively here and in B.C. over the last week
and it shows in the polls with growing support.
It's a balmy +7 C here. Some of us are in shirtsleeves.
DAVID AKIN
————————–
CELL: +1 613 220 7935
Blog:
http://david-akin.electionblog.ctv.ca
Full contact info:
http://www.davidakin.com