I'll post more excerpts later from the MInisterial Briefing Notes given to Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, Diane Ablonczy,but here's the story that resulted:
The Canadian tourism industry is in dire straits, but federal Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy has little money or legislative authority to do much about it, according to briefing notes obtained by Canwest News Service.
Ablonczy's ability to influence federal policy on tourism was further diminished late last month after she was stripped of funding responsibility for a key program after angering social Conservatives in caucus when she approved a grant to Toronto's gay Pride Week.
But even before that, the bureaucrats in her own department had warned her of the difficult task she faced as the lead cabinet minister responsible for tourism, an industry that generates about $74 billion a year and employs 660,000 Canadians.
“Your ability to help maintain and boost growth and competitiveness is constrained by current market forces, lack of funds for new or enhanced program spending and the broad dispersion of policies and programs of support across the federal government,” an anonymous bureaucrat writes in the ministerial briefing books given to Ablonczy, a Calgary MP, after she was sworn in as minister of state for small business and tourism last November.