10/29/2022 0 Comments To be barked by the liberas![]() ![]() Jimmy Carter managed the schedule of the White House tennis courts this is close to that level of insane nitpicking. Asking either of these people to make such a decision or even to be aware of it momentarily is a terrible waste of their time. What’s more upsetting still is the later news that emails before the reception on the topic of Heinbecker’s attendance were ignored, even though the emails’ recipient list included the department’s deputy minister and the minister’s chief of staff - respectively, the top bureaucratic official and the top political staffer. This realization is now baked into the procedural book of everyone who deals with this government in any capacity - and, plainly, of increasing numbers of people who work inside it. They react to headlines as Dracula did to garlic. Issues management squads have the only autonomy in this government. Everybody knows that if the government of Canada is doing something they don’t like, they should tell a reporter about it, because the government of Canada will instantly reverse course to make the bad headline stop hurting. I don’t know the departmental spokesperson whose work shift began with “Nothing to see here, folks” and ended with seppuku, but I’m quite sure she was sent out by others to deliver two contradictory answers she didn’t write, and I presume the best solace she could contrive at the end of that particular day for her choice of career was that the paychecks don’t bounce. ![]() ![]() Which means the government is once again advertising its skittishness. What’s more upsetting is that the department’s original answer didn’t survive contact with the Globe and Mail’ s website. Sometimes in our outrage, a sense of scale is missing. And if a diplomat pokes her head in at a reception, that strikes me as a poor call, but not the sort of thing that’s likely to tip the balance in Donbas. The department’s original response to reporters’ queries - “we still maintain a diplomatic relation with Russia” - is true. TO BE BARKED BY THE LIBERAS FREETo me the least upsetting part of this is that Yasemin Heinbecker, a Global Affairs Canada official, went to a Russia Day reception at the Russian Embassy, down on Free Ukraine Street across from the pro-Ukrainian protesters. And since I always wish we could be well governed this week, by whichever government we already have, the shakiness matters. It’s sufficient to note that the Liberals have had a shaky half-year. I’m not big on speculation about the outcomes of distant elections anyway. I mostly just want to use this post to catch up on a few stories and themes that emerged while I was away. The headline is also a bit of a placeholder. Although, damnedest thing, in the end he’s more fine than the ex-leaders of the other two parties. A headline over a Jen Gerson piece once claimed Doug Ford would be fine, and she has had to insist ever since that she didn’t write the headline. Meanwhile this post’s provocative headline is just a nod to the legacy of my former workplace. Knowing that demon lives in the air, somewhere out beyond the third election, is the sort of thing that will make most prime ministers more inclined to test their luck. So did Pierre Trudeau, though he came back to win his fifth. Second, only two Canadian prime ministers have won four consecutive elections: John Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier. First, election outcomes are never certain in advance. I think it’s safer to invoke two even more venerable principles of politics. The Wells Rules are art, not physics, which means when they don’t work, it’s part of their beauty. It’s all nearly enough to trigger Wells’s Second Rule, which as you know holds that “If everyone in Ottawa knows something, it’s not true.” At some point a sufficient number of predictions of Justin Trudeau’s political demise is all he needs to win. Top strategists : Liberals “risk losing next election.” Aaron Wherry : “Warning bells…crosswinds.” Chantal Hébert : “Running on empty… rot… seems to have set in.” Don Martin : “The fall of Justin Trudeau has begun.” Hill Times : rumours of a “massive” caucus revolt. I return to find I’m late catching up to a Trudeau doom feeding frenzy. Arbitrarily selected photo of the PM looking cheeky ![]()
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