Jim Flaherty Fast Rob Fonberg - The Hill Times

THE HILL TIMES • 2013 • $8.95

STEPHEN HARPER

Jim Flaherty JOHN BAIRD

Jason Kenney

JAMES MOORE

Wayne Wouters

Jenni Byrne

PETER

MACKAY

Tony Clement

JUSTIN

TRUDEAU

CHRIS

WOODCOCK

MICHAEL

FERGUSON

Rona Amb

Christian Paradis

BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN

Rob ALLISON Fonberg

101

MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

rose TOM

MICHAEL HORGAN

Andrew

MacDougall

LEONA

AGLUKKAQ

Morris

Rosenberg

STEPHEN

CARTER

RAY NOVAK

Serge Dupont

John

Knubley

MULCAIR

BRAD

Raoul

WALL

Gébert

TOM

LAW SON

Ed

REDFORD

Arthur Hamilton

MICHELLE D’AURAY

ISSN 1929-2473

Simon Kennedy

Ted Men

zies Nathan

Cullen

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Contents

Top 100 list The Top 25 The politicians The political staffers The public servants The lobbyists & consultants The media Other public figures Energy & environment MPs and art Château Laurier Hotel MPs’ tattoos Best parties Best watering holes

10 Jim Flaherty So far, he’s Canada’s untouchable Finance minister. 10 Jason Kenney He’s the Immigration and Citizenship minister with the killer political instincts. 11 John Baird He’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s go-to guy on just about everything.

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Photograph courtesy of the PMO

8 Stephen Harper He’s the central figure of the most centralized federal government in the country’s history.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Laureen Harper, pictured on June 7, 2012, in Paris after a bilateral meeting with French President François Hollande.

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11 Tony Clement This Treasury Board president is one fierce partisan player. 13 Ed Fast International Trade minister has a big job, but stays below the radar. 14 Mark Carney Bank of Canada Governor starts a new gig in England in July, but he’s still influential until then, and a little more controversial now.

Rookie NDP MPs Christine Moore and Rosane Doré Lefebvre.

Published by Hill Times Publishing Inc. © 2013 Hill Times Publishing All rights reserved. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40068926 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: CIRCULATION DEPT. 69 Sparks Street, Ottawa, ON K1P 5A5 e-mail: [email protected] www.hilltimes.com (613) 232-5952 • Fax (613) 232-9055

ISSN 1929-2473

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NDP MP Peter Stoffer in his office of many hats and buttons.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair.

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Power & Inf luence, 2013—

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Photographs by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

16 Jenni Byrne She’s considered the most powerful woman in political Ottawa.

Contents Diplomacy power: Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer pictured with U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson.

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51 31

PMO power: PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright.

16 Political party power: Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton.

Legal power: Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

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2 —Power & Inf luence 2013

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Political and bureaucratic clout: Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose pictured with her DM Michelle d’Auray and Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Media power: Ottawa Citizen news reporter Glen McGregor and Postmedia national columnist Stephen Maher.

Out on the town: Conservative Yukon MP Ryan Leef at one of the Top 10 must-attend political parties.

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Watering holes:: holes The places Ottawa’s politicos and media frequent. Jeff O’Reilly strikes a pose at D’Arcy McGee’s.

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Editor’s Note Power & Influence bigger, better BY KATE MALLOY

Editor Kate Malloy Deputy Editor Bea Vongdouangchanh Reporters Mark Bourrie Jessica Bruno Christopher Guly Chris Plecash Laura Ryckewaert

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Published by Hill Times Publishing Inc. © 2013 Hill Times Publishing. All rights reserved.

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Associate Publisher Anne Marie Creskey Publishers Ross Dickson Jim Creskey

69 Sparks Street, Ottawa, ON K1P 5A5 (613) 232-5952 • Fax (613) 232-9055 • hilltimes.com

It’s Jimmy: Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, photographed by Jake Wright, in his Parliament Hill office on Dec. 7, 2012.

W

hen it comes to power and influence in Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, considered one of the most powerful prime ministers in Canadian history, is, of course, at the top of the heap. A handful of Cabinet ministers also have significant power and influence, but there are many federal bureaucrats, political staffers, lobbyists, provincial politicians, and members of the media who need to be included in the wielders of power and influence in the federal scene. Six years ago, we started The Hill Times annual list of “The 100 Influential People To Watch in Government and Politics.” We borrowed the idea from Washington’s Foreign Policy magazine’s “100 Top Global Thinkers.” Here, in Canada’s capital, we wanted to shed more light on who these powerful and influential people are in the federal government and politics, try to explain the source of their strength, and put it all together in one comprehensive package. Readers liked it. Last year, we decided to take it further. We published it as a glossy magazine, called it Power & Influence, and a little star was born. So here we are, back with the seventh edition, bigger and better. But it’s not easy coming up with top 100 lists, however, we try to offer the best list possible. This year it’s 101. Bea Vongdouangchanh, deputy editor of The Hill Times, who has been putting together the top annual 100 list for the last five years, spent about two months talking to Conservatives, lobbyists, New Democrats, and Liberals about this year’s list. Mark Bourrie, a bestselling author and journalist, wrote 60 profiles in this year’s Power & Influence 2013 magazine. Ms.Vongdouangchanh, along with Hill Times reporters Jessica Bruno and Laura Ryckewaert, each wrote a handful more profiles. Not every person on the list has been profiled this year, but they are all the top players to watch in 2013. In addition to the top 101 list, Power & Influence features some of the powerful places, innovative ideas, and some personal stories about life on the Hill that extend beyond the Ottawa bubble. Ms. Bruno and Ms. Ryckewaert tracked down MPs with interesting art, both in their offices and on their bodies. Ms. Bruno also gives readers the rundown on the best political parties of the year as well as the best bars and watering holes where politicos like to hang out in Ottawa. Adding to that, Christopher Guly writes about the Château Laurier’s glamorous 100-year history in the nation’s capital and how it has been the venue for many major federal political events. Hill Times reporter Chris Plecash tackles the energy and environment files through a Q&A interview with Alberta Progressive Conservative Premier Alison Redford and in-depth story on Canada’s energy policies. We hope you enjoy this issue of Power & Influence 2013. We’re already looking forward to 2014 and to offering you an even bigger and better package. Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Contributors KATE MALLOY, 47, got her first reporting job in 1988 with The Yellowknifer in Yellowknife, N.W.T., after graduating with a BJ from Carleton University. She stayed in the North for a year, but returned to Ottawa and has been at The Hill Times ever since it began in 1989. She was made editor of The Hill Times, today an award-winning newspaper, in 1999. An Ottawa native, Malloy lives in Ottawa’s Little Italy neighbourhood with her husband, CTV Ottawa assignment editor John Crupi, and their two teenaged daughters. Malloy likes exclusive, important stories, a happy newsroom, and overuses the word “juicy.” BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH was two weeks old when she immigrated to Canada with her family as refugees from Laos. She holds an honours BA and an MJ from Carleton University and a BJ from the University of King’s College. Vongdouangchanh, 32, joined The Hill Times newsroom in 2005 and was promoted to deputy editor in 2008. That same year, she spent two months working at The New Times in Kigali, Rwanda through Carleton University’s now-defunct Rwanda Initiative program. Vongdouangchanh previously worked as a reporter and copy editor at The Record in Sherbrooke, Que. The sign over her newsroom desk reads, “Deadlines amuse me.”

MARK BOURRIE who wrote most of the profiles in Power & Influence, holds a master of journalism from Carleton University and a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa. His 10th book, The Fog of War: Censorship of Canada’s Media in World War II, reached No. 6 on Maclean’s bestseller list in September 2011. His latest book is Fighting Words: Canada’s Best War Reporting. He is a three-time National Magazine Award nominee, winning gold in the social affairs category in 2001. He has been a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1994.

JESSICA BRUNO, 25, who hails from Toronto, Ont., has been a Hill Times reporter since 2010. She graduated with highest honours from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2010. Before becoming a full-time reporter at The Hill Times, she interned at the paper twice. Bruno has interned at CBC Radio in Ottawa and in its London, England bureau, as well as at the National Post in Toronto. When she’s not stalking MPs or mandarins around the halls of power, you can find her at the local pub sipping a gin and wondering why she didn’t run as an NDP candidate in Quebec in 2011.


CHRIS PLECASH, 30, who grew up in Wawa, Ont., reports on public policy, energy, and environmental issues for The Hill Times. Plecash studied documentary filmmaking at Algonquin College’s school of media and design before joining the paper during the 2011 federal election campaign. He holds a BA in philosophy and political science from the University of Western Ontario and an MA in philosophy from York University, where he specialized in bioethics. His hobbies include apartment-based horticulture and racking up big Scrabble wins. LAURA RYCKEWAERT, 23, has been a reporter at The Hill Times since 2011, after graduating with a bachelor of journalism and a minor in history from Carleton University. Ryckewaert, raised in Toronto, Ont., interned at The Hill Times before being hired full-time. From old jail cells in Centre Block, to talk of ghosts in the East Block, Ryckewaert—a history lover—seeks to uncover the little-known details of Parliament’s historic precinct.

JAKE WRIGHT is an Ottawa native who fell in love with photography in high school, but somehow found himself working later on lasers at Nortel and JDS Uniphase. He joined The Hill Times in 2002. Since then, he’s covered four federal elections, countless political conventions, and most, if not all, of Ottawa’s political elite through his camera lens. In 2010, he spent three months in Afghanistan embedded with the U.S. military, where he says he never felt more alive. When he’s not shooting photos for The Hill Times and other clients, he’s working on one of three Mercedes cars, listening to vinyl records or planning his next road trip. He says he’ll never go back to a “regular” job. Winnipeg-born CHRISTOPHER GULY’s journalism career dates back to high school in the late 1970s. A member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1993, he has written for a host of publications, including Reader’s Digest, Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, and The Hill Times. Mr. Guly wrote the feature on the Château Laurier Hotel. His Château connection dates back to the 1990s when he used to manually edit, with a razor blade, English radio talk tapes for CBC Ottawa when it occupied the seventh floor on the hotel’s east side. His favourite Château memory is of attending Easter Sunday brunch at Wilfrid’s with his parents.

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Power & Influence

Walk this way: Prime Minister Stephen Harper and British Prime Minister David Cameron, pictured on May 19, leaving Camp David.

This just in: the ones who hold the real power in Ottawa BY BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH After a high-profile public debate on whether the federal government should allow the China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd. to spend $15.2-billion to take over Nexen, a Calgary-based oil sands company, the government gave it the green light. But, unlike when then-Industry minister Tony Clement announced the government would be blocking Australia’s BHP Billiton’s hostile takeover of Saskatchewan’s Potash, it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, on a late Friday afternoon on Dec. 7 on Parliament Hill in Room 160-S Centre Block, announced the Nexen sale. He was also the one who took questions from media. It is a testament to how Prime Minister Harper runs Ottawa. He’s on top of everything. He is the most powerful person in Ottawa, and takes on all the important decisions himself.


He has shifted the political command centre to Western Canada. Not only is he attuned to western issues as an Albertan, he sees the West as the gateway to Canada’s future economic growth, focusing on natural resource development and international trade, as opposed to Central Canada’s manufacturing base which is currently in decline. As a result, these are the issues that top the government’s agenda. Those who hold the portfolios—that is those who Mr. Harper has allowed to play a role—are the ones who have risen to the top as powerful and influential players in today’s federal political scene. As Globe and Mail chief political writer John Ibbitson says, “There is a new axis of power and it’s rooted in the West.” The Hill Times’ Sixth Annual Top 100 Most Powerful and Influential People in Government and Politics list reflects this shift. But, insiders say Mr. Harper’s approach is to “not make waves,”

so several people on the list are in Prime Minister Harper’s inner circle who have a very low-key influence but nonetheless play an important role in how Ottawa runs. For example, one insider said PMO directors, chief of staff Nigel Wright, and Conservative Party director of political operations Jenni Byrne, who are considered to be at the “high table,” see and speak to Mr. Harper every day, “so their influence is very real,” but not public. PMO principal secretary Ray Novak is closest to the Prime Minister. “He [Mr. Novak] spends his days talking to all of the important people in the world, relaying messages from the PM and getting feedback from far and wide,” said one insider. Official Ottawa is made up of much more than the Prime Minister and his court, however. Although subtle, power and influence can come in many ways.


Power & Inf luence For example, Bob Rae is the third party’s interim leader and the Liberals are poised to select a new leader this April—likely Liberal MP Justin Trudeau—but insiders say Mr. Rae will still command ink and broadcast time. “He gets press when he wants it,” one insider said, which could influence not only the party’s fortunes, but also the day’s news agenda and consequently Question Period. Others, like the Ontario premier, should be on the list by virtue of leading the country’s biggest province. Whoever wins the Ontario provincial Liberal leadership this winter will play a role on the federalprovincial scene. Then there are the federal public servants who are toiling behind the scenes to implement the Conservative government’s agenda. Some, such as Industry Canada deputy minister John Knubley, who also heads the Investment Canada Act group in his department, will be front and centre in redefining foreign takeovers and advising his minister on what exactly a “net benefit” to Canada is. Lobbyists and consultants are also playing an influential role in which direction the government moves, whether it’s working on pre-budget consultations, or discussing Canada’s future innovation agenda, those who hold the real power do take notice. The Hill Times presents its Sixth Annual Top 100 Most Powerful and Influential People in Government and Politics, a list subjectively decided on after consultations with political insiders over a two-month period. These are the top 100 movers and shakers for 2013.

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Power & Inf luence 2013—

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The Top 25

That’s a good one Stephen: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, pictured with U.S. President Barack Obama at the G8 Leaders’ Summit on May 19, 2012, at Camp David. Photograph courtesy of the PMO

HE’S GOT THE POWER 1

1

Stephen Harper Prime Minister

H

e’s the central figure of the most centralized federal government in the country’s history, so there’s no doubt that Stephen Harper is, by far, the most influential person in Ottawa. He won his much-coveted majority in 2011, ending years of gamesmanship and election threats. Now he’s approaching the half-way mark in a mandate that will prove pivotal to his political future. Will he be able to get the trade deals that he believes are the key to Canada’s economic growth in this century? Can he remake the federal government into an organization that defers to the Prime Minister’s Office? Can he make it smaller and more efficient? And how do his supposed beliefs on small government square with


the realities of running a country with so many competing regional interests and such an even split between citizens who believe in government intervention and those who wish Ottawa would wither and die? By the end of next year, the political landscape will be remade. The federal, Quebec and Ontario Liberals will have new leaders. There will be a new premier in Ontario, and possibly a different party in power. Quebec remains fluid, with the Parti Québécois grasping a narrow minority and the Liberals hoping to make a comeback. Expect Mr. Harper to continue to remake the top echelon of the public service and to try to reduce federal oversight in many policy areas. At the same time, keep an eye on the world economy. Prime Minister Harper has already had to remake his financial plans once in the face of a global economic crisis and a world-wide recession. With the United States struggling with its deficit and the European Union in recession, Mr. Harper may once again be held hostage to the fortunes of others.—Mark Bourrie

The Top 25

Flaherty: the untouchable 2

Jim Flaherty Finance Minister

im Flaherty, 63, a Montreal-born lawyer who represents the Toronto-area riding of Whitby-Oshawa, is one of the few relatively unfettered members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Cabinet and is a serious contender to replace the Prime Minister when he decides to leave. Mr. Flaherty cut his teeth in the nasty politics of Ontario premier Mike Harris’ “Common Sense Revolution”and was, along with John Baird and, later, Tony Clement, one of the top-tier Ontario Tories who came to Ottawa after Ernie Eves led the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party back into the wilderness. The elfin Mr. Flaherty is one of the toughest political operatives on the Hill. Unfortunately, he has one weakness that may trouble him as the years go by: his inability to balance a budget. It was a problem for Mr. Flaherty in Ontario, and he is dogged by a stubborn federal deficit that embarrasses a party that wants to be seen as fiscally conservative. As the years go by and the deadline for a balanced budget keeps being pushed back a year, some fiscal conservatives are looking wistfully at Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale. Still, Mr. Flaherty continues to have the support of the Prime Minister, possibly because whatever Mr. Flaherty’s ambitions may be, he is far more discreet about them than Paul Martin ever was.—Mark Bourrie

Kenney: a power base Jason Kenney 3 Immigration Minister

I

n 2008, after serving as Parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister and, for a short time, Minister of Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney took a very thankless and perilous portfolio—Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism—and turned it into a power base. The Calgary Southeast MP not only put out quite a few fires in that policy area, he managed to almost single-handedly defuse one of the biggest obstacles to a Tory majority: the view among many new Canadians that the Tories were unsympathetic to them. Mr. Kenney took on a tough job of visiting immigrant communities in the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, made friends with community leaders, courted ethnic media editors, and assured them that the Tories would listen to them. He’s changed the family reunification plan and brought in other reforms that pleased immigrant groups and opened up the temporary workers’ program. At the same time, he risked a backlash by keeping immigration levels at historically high levels while bringing


Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty pictured on Dec. 7, 2012 in his Centre Block office.


J

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, pictured on the Hill.

in new mechanisms for quickly removing from Canada bogus refugees and immigrants with criminal records. He also imposed visa requirements on European countries where a wave of Roma refugee claimants originated. Mr. Kenney made a name for himself as a tough critic of the Beijing regime and a vocal supporter of the Dalai Lama. All of this relentless, focused campaigning resulted in a big shift of seats in southern Ontario and southwestern British Columbia from the Liberals to the Conservatives, the first time in more than a century that the Tories were able to corral a large voting block of new Canadians. In return, Mr. Harper has given Mr. Kenney a very long leash, long enough to let him vote against Mr. Harper in last fall’s debate of Tory MP Stephen Woodard’s motion on reopenning the abortion debate.—Mark Bourrie

The Top 25

Mr. Baird also carries the government’s pro-Israel message. In recent years, the Tories’ unwavering support for the Jewish state, including its military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, has made the Conservative government friends in the Jewish community and has pried a large, politically-active constituency out of the hands of the Liberals. Mr. Baird, for all his Parliamentary posturing—which sometimes borders on buffoonery—is a popular and respected member of Cabinet. He’s also the political minister for the Ottawa region, having, among other things, the National Capital Commission under his wing. And, to cap it off, he’s a close personal friend of Stephen and Laureen Harper, often squiring the Prime Minister’s wife to the social events and galas that Mr. Harper dreads.—Mark Bourrie

Foreign Affairs Minister

A

nother Highway 401 refugee from the Common Sense Revolution meltdown, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is the go-to guy for Parliamentary goon work and a Tory hell-raiser all his adult life. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has trusted him with some of the government’s most important files. Now as Foreign Affairs minister in a majority government, Mr. Baird is one of the quarterbacks of Mr. Harper’s big push for free trade deals, which is shaping up to be one of the government’s attempts to build a legacy.

Clement: fierce partisan player

5

Tony Clement

Treasury Board President

ony Clement, 52, the Parry Sound-Muskoka MP, president of the Treasury Board, and minister of the Federal Economic Initiative in Northern Ontario (FedNor), is a veteran of former Ontario Tory premier Mike Harris’s Cabinet, where he held the tough and contentious Health portfolio. Mr. Clement was one of the creators of the United Alternative movement to consolidate Canada’s conservatives into one party. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2006 by 26 votes over then-Liberal MP Andy Mitchell and was given the Health portfolio in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first Cabinet. After the 2008 election, he was made Minister of Industry and was promoted to the Treasury Board portfolio after the 2011 majority victory. Mr. Clement is in charge of the government’s massive spending system and has the lead role in deciding which priorities are funded and which operations are cut. So far, the cuts have been done without serious blowback from the public sector unions. He is trusted enough by the Prime Minister to be able to speak fairly freely to the media, to the point that he has become something of a fixture on Twitter. Mr. Clement is a tough partisan who, though he ran against Mr. Harper for the party leadership, has


T

Treasury Board President Tony Clement is a tough partisan who, though he ran against Harper for the party leadership, has shown no sign that he is a dissatisfied with the direction of the government. shown no sign that he is dissatisfied with the direction of the government. Mr. Clement’s determination to do better than his narrow win in 2006 and fierce partisanship did get him in trouble in his own riding over spending for the 2010 G8/G20 summits.—Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Baird: PM’s go-to guy on everything 4 John Baird

THE TOP 25 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Stephen Harper Jim Flaherty Jason Kenney John Baird Tony Clement Ed Fast Mark Carney Thomas Mulcair Nigel Wright Wayne Wouters Arthur Hamilton Jenni Byrne Rachel Curran Stephen Rigby Michelle d’Auray Yaprak Baltacioglu Guy Saint-Jacques Simon Kennedy John Knubley John Manley Tom Lawson Beverley McLachlin Andrew MacDougall Ray Novak Justin Trudeau

THE TOP 100, BY CATEGORY POLITICIANS Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird Treasury Board President Tony Clement NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino International Trade Minister Ed Fast Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Prime Minister Stephen Harper Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Transport Minister Denis Lebel Government Senate Leader Marjory LeBreton NDP MP Megan Leslie Defence Minister Peter MacKay Quebec Premier Pauline Marois Minister of State for Finance Ted Menzies Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair Justice Minister Rob Nicholson Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver Industry Minister Christian Paradis Liberal Interim Leader Bob Rae Labour Minister Lisa Raitt Alberta Premier Alison Redford Public Safety Minister Vic Toews Liberal MP Justin Trudeau Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall Ontario Premier

The Hill Times’ Top 100 Most Influential People in Government & Politics for 2013 POLITICAL STAFFERS Karl Bélanger, NDP principal secretary Neil Brodie, Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s chief of staff Jenni Byrne, Conservative Party director of political operations Rachel Curran, PMO director of policy Raoul Gébert, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s chief of staff Garry Keller, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s chief of staff Andrew MacDougall, PMO communications director Kevin McCarthy, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s chief of staff Joanne McNamara, PMO deputy chief of staff Ray Novak, principal secretary to the PM Andrea van Vugt, PMO foreign affairs, trade and international development policy Alykhan Velshi, PMO director of planning and stakeholder relations Nigel Wright, PM’s chief of staff Chris Woodcock, PMO director of issues management LOBBYISTS & CONSULTANTS Perrin Beatty, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Derek Burney, Norton Rose Canada senior strategic adviser John Manley, Canadian Council of Chief Executives president and CEO Al Monaco, Enbridge president and CEO


Jayson Myers, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president Tim Powers, Summa Strategies VP Jim Prentice, CIBC senior executive VP and vice-chair PUBLIC SERVANTS & OFFICIALS

Yaprak Baltacioglu, Secretary of the Treasury Board Stewart Beck, Canadian High Commissioner to India Jean-Pierre Blais, CRTC chair Mark Carney, Bank of Canada Governor Janice Charette, PCO associate secretary to the Cabinet and deputy minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Michelle d’Auray, Public Works deputy minister Julie Dickson, superintendent of Financial Institutions Gary Doer, Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Serge DuPont, Natural Resources deputy minister Michael Ferguson, Auditor General Robert Fonberg, National Defence deputy minister Michael Horgan, Finance deputy minister Governor General David Johnston Simon Kennedy, International Trade deputy minister John Knubley, Industry Canada deputy minister Tom Lawson, Chief of Defence Staff Michael Martin, PCO deputy secretary to the Cabinet, operations

Beverley McLachlin, Supreme Court chief justice David Moloney, senior adviser, Privy Council Office Kevin Page, Parliamentary budget officer Bob Paulson, RCMP commissioner Bill Pentney, Justice deputy minister Stephen Rigby, national security adviser to the prime minister Morris Rosenberg, Foreign Affairs deputy minister Guy Saint-Jacques, Canadian Ambassador to China Chuck Strahl, chair of Security Intelligence Review Committee Wayne Wouters, PCO clerk MEDIA CBC’s The National’s At Issue Panel, Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne, and Bruce Anderson, hosted by Peter Mansbridge Joël-Denis Bellavance, La Presse bureau chief Tom Clark, Global TV’s The West Block host Manon Cornellier Le Devoir reporter Bob Fife, CTV Ottawa bureau chief Tim Harper, The Toronto Star and The Hill Times columnist Chantal Hébert, The Toronto Star, Le Devoir, The Hill Times columnist John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail Ottawa chief political writer John Ivison, National Post columnist Mark Kennedy, Postmedia chief Will LeRoy, National Newswatch founder David Ljunggren, Reuters reporter Stephen Maher, Postmedia News national columnist Don Martin, CTV Power Play host Glen McGregor, Ottawa Citizen reporter Rick Mercer, political satirist Kevin Newman, CTV Question Period host Rob Russo, Canadian Press Ottawa bureau chief Evan Solomon, CBCNN’s Power and Politics and CBC Radio’s The House host OTHER PUBLIC FIGURES Shawn Atleo, AFN National Chief Tim Barber, Canada 2020 co-founder Stephen Carter, political organizer Brian Lee Crowley, MacdonaldLaurier Institute managing director Arthur Hamilton, Conservative Party lawyer Laureen Harper, Prime Minister’s wife —Compiled by deputy editor Bea Vongdouangchanh


The Top 25

International Trade Minister Ed Fast, pictured with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Aug. 28, 2011, at a celebration of the centennial of the historic Gur Sikh Temple in Abbotsford, B.C.

Fast Eddy: he’s got a big job 6 Ed Fast

International Trade Minister

T

he majority Conservative government has staked out big, important foreign free trade deals as one of its key targets. The Harper government is trying to develop agreements with India, China, Japan, the European Union, and the new Pacific trading block that’s taking shape. International Trade Minister Ed Fast, 57, who represents the solidly Conservative riding of Abbotsford in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, holds the portfolios of Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made the trade deals something of his own personal mission and has preferred face-to-

face negotiations with world leaders rather than have Mr. Fast carry the ball. Mr. Harper also sent his trusted chief of staff, Nigel Wright, to negotiate for a seat in transpacific free trade talks. Still, International Trade is a tough portfolio, even with the PM running interference. The trade deals are already being criticized for the secrecy of the negotiations leading up to them and for what critics call a lack of transparency in the agreements themselves. Drug companies—especially the generic makers who have spent millions of dollars and years of time lobbying for patent and copyright rules that underlie their business-

es—worry that their interests will be sold out in return for a deal with the European Union. Mr. Fast was also involved in the tricky Nexen-CNOOC decision, and was responsible for his department’s determination of the “net benefit” test used to determine whether the Chinese state oil company could buy a major player in the Alberta oil sands for $15.2-billion. Travelling with Prime Minister Harper on his trade missions gives Mr. Fast both a high profile and enviable access to the Prime Minister, making him one of the most important ministers in the Harper Cabinet.—Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

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The Top 25

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ark Carney starts a new job heading up the Bank of England this July, but remains one of the most influential people in Canadian government and politics. The 48-year-old Harvard and Oxford-educated governor who holds a PhD in economics, was recently involved with controversy not normally reserved for an impartial and non-partisan Bank of Canada governor. He is so respected in Canada that he was seriously discussed as a draft candidate for leadership of the federal Liberal Party to give frontrunner Justin Trudeau a run for his money. Senior Liberals from the “right” side of the party tried hard to get him to join the race, but in the end, he opted for a job overseas. Before 2012 was out, however, critics called into question his judgment and impartiality when The Globe and Mail reported that he stayed at Liberal MP Scott Brison’s cottage in

Nova Scotia for a week. The Bank of Canada said he did not break any ethics or conflict-of-interest rules as no bank business was discussed during the trip. The two have been friends since Mr. Brison was the Public Works minister in 2004 and Mr. Carney was associate deputy minister at Finance. Despite the hoopla, Mr. Carney has made a remarkable international reputation as an economic genius for his handling of the fall-out in Canada of the 2008 financial crisis. On Nov. 26, 2012, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his appointment. Mr. Carney, who was appointed governor of the Bank of Canada on Feb. 1, 2008 and is cutting his seven-year term short when he starts his new job in London on July 1, 2013, will be the first foreign governor of the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694.—Mark Bourrie

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London-bound Carney influential until he exits

Mark Carney

Bank of Canada Governor

8 Thomas Mulcair NDP Leader

Tough guy Mulcair looks to next election


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om Mulcair took over the late Jack Layton’s job, but did he also assume Layton’s position of leader of the Orange Crush movement? Was Layton’s breakthrough in Quebec a one-off thing fuelled by circumstances and by empathy for a brave man with a cane? Can the rest of Canada embrace a man many call “Angry Tom,” who scolds well in both official languages? Mr. Mulcair has a couple of years to develop policies that can hold the Quebec breakthrough and consolidate support in the urban cores of the country’s biggest cities and Atlantic Canada. He’ll do well to be able to keep that. To win, he must be able to win in the smaller cities and in the countryside west of the Ontario-Quebec border. His challenge will be to keep a rein on his temper. It got him into trouble in Québec City and it hasn’t made him many friends in Ottawa.


Plus he’ll find out this year who his Liberal challenger will be. Justin Trudeau is certainly a threat to him in his base areas of Quebec and Toronto, but Mr. Mulcair is a tough, smart debater and an expert on Quebec issues, the environment, and social issues. Mr. Mulcair may find it much more difficult to go up against an older, more experienced Liberal. As for influence, Mr. Mulcair, as leader of the official opposition, has an important platform. He’s taken seriously by the media, even though Mr. Mulcair’s disdain for the press rivals that of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He may be able to energize the country on an economic, trade or environmental issue in the coming months. Whatever happens, this will be a year in which Mr. Mulcair will have to work very, very hard.—Mark Bourrie

Wright: most powerful political staffer in Ottawa


The Top 25


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Making plans for Nigel: Insiders say Nigel Wright, the most important political staffer in Ottawa, has toned down some of the winner-take-all attitude of the frat boy crowd in the Langevin Block.

9 Nigel Wright Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper

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fter dealing with a revolving door of chiefs of staff, the Prime Minister’s Office settled down under Onex executive Nigel Wright, who took a sabbatical (since extended) from his top job as managing director of Onex to be head staffer in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office. It wasn’t a pretty move. Opposition party politicians and some media attacked his appointment, saying Mr. Wright could find himself in a serious conflict of interest. And, apparently, Prime Minister Harper is said to be a demanding and unpleasant boss. Mr. Wright took a big pay cut, from his estimated $2-million Bay Street salary. But very few have more influence in Ottawa than Mr. Wright, who seems to be trusted by Mr. Harper more than members of his own Cabinet.

He has been handed very sensitive jobs that normally fall to ministers, including being dispatched by Prime Minister Harper to try to win Canada a seat in Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks. Insiders say Mr. Wright has toned down some of the winner-take-all attitude of the frat boy crowd in the Langevin Block. The 49-year-old lawyer has, supporters and friends say, built an ethical wall around himself to prevent conflicts from arising. And, after the tough early months and the long hours in a job that is quite often grueling and unrewarding, Mr. Wright has decided to stay on for a few months. If he does return to Toronto this year, don’t be surprised if he comes back. Strangely, he seems to like the place.—Mark Bourrie

Wouters: country’s top bureaucrat Wayne Wouters PCO Clerk

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askatchewan-born economist Wayne Wouters is both the chief executive officer of the public service and a trusted adviser of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He’s been a federal public servant for three decades and has held the top job at the Privy Council Office since Canada Day 2009. Mr. Wouters took over from Kevin Lynch when the federal government was still expanding and hiring. Now it has entered a period of program review and spending cuts under a majority Tory government. Mr. Wouters, so far, has been able to quarterback the public service downsizing without too much blowback from the public service unions. He’s also been able to compromise with Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, allowing deputy ministers to decide whether to comply with Mr. Page’s request for financial information. He has presided over a Privy Council Office that has become increasingly politicized. A subcommittee of Cabinet’s Priorities and Planning Committee has been overseeing the re-making of the public service, backed by experts at PCO. There have been rumors that Mr. Wouters, who turns 63 in April and qualifies for a full pension, may want to retire to his hobbies of golf and hockey. Clerks of the Privy Council have, in recent years, had a relatively short shelf life, and Mr. Wouters’ more than three years in the job is a respectable run. —Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

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1 1 Tory Party’s top lawyer he Conservative Party calls on Arthur Hamilton to represent it in various courts, and over the years there have been more than a few cases. After starting at Cassels Brock & Blackwell as an articling student in 1996, by 2003 Mr. Hamilton was a partner at the firm and shortly after, he successfully defended the right of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties to merge. Since then, Mr. Hamilton has been called on to handle the CPC’s most politically-charged and highest-profile lawsuits, including defending the party on the 2006 in-and-out spending scandal, serving as the party’s lead counsel on the Gomery Commission into the Liberal sponsorship scandal, and most recently, fighting a Council of Canadians lawsuit that sought to overturn the 2011 election results in six Conservative-held ridings across the country. But Mr. Hamilton, who studied atYork University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Ont., during which time he became politically active in Progressive

Conservative circles and volunteered on the 1993 leadership campaign of Kim Campbell, does more work for the party than just fighting major lawsuits. In the fall of 2011, Mr. Hamilton was the one who sent a letter to Elections Canada on behalf of the party asking the agency to investigate whether the NDP broke political financing laws at their 2011 policy convention. In the end, Elections Canada had the NDP pay back more than $230,000 in what they declared to be union contributions under elections laws, and the issue has since frequently been used as partisan fire by the Conservative benches in the House of Commons. Mr. Hamilton’s calm, professional, yet combative personality has served the party well over the years, and he has become the party’s go-to guy when bad things hit the Conservative Party’s proverbial fan. As such, Mr. Hamilton is not just privy to high-level information, but plays a central role in determining the Conservative Party’s legal fortunes.—Laura Ryckewaert

Arthur Hamilton

Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP partner and Conservative Party lawyer


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Fight club: Arthur Hamilton’s calm, professional, but combative personality has served the Conservative Party well over the years.

Byrne: Most powerful woman in political Ottawa

12 Jenni Byrne Director of Political Operations, Conservative Party of Canada



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enni Byrne, 35, is said to be the most powerful woman in Ottawa. She is the director of political operations for the Conservative Party and a former director of issues management in the Prime Minister’s Office. Ms. Byrne joined the Reform Party at 16, then headed the party’s political clubs at Barrie’s Georgian College and at the University of Ottawa in the mid1990s. Later, she worked as an adviser to the PM’s chief of staff Ian Brodie and subsequently worked as the deputy campaign manager under Doug Finley. She was in charge of damage control in Prime Minister Harper’s PMO until Mr. Finley was appointed to the Senate. At that time, she was promoted to the top job in the campaign organization. The Hill Times described her work on the Conservatives’ majority government win in 2011, of overseeing day-to-day operations as “one of the most efficient, richest, and iron-disciplined campaign machines in Canadian political history.” She has a reputation for being tough, private, and intolerant of screwups. She’s also seen as a sort of political extension of Prime Minister Harper, relying on tough political discipline to prevent the kind of flare-ups that crippled the Reform Party in its early years and torpedoed the Wildrose Party in Alberta last year.—Mark Bourrie

The Top 25

Curran’s expertise in West Coast politics continuing asset in PMO 13 Rachel Curran

Rigby: Top security decision-maker

Photograph courtesy of the PCO

PMO Policy Director

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he first year of Stephen Harper’s majority government has proven the Conservatives’ ability to successfully push legislation through the House and has seen them finally act on major and long-term policy goals, making Rachel Curran’s role as policy head all the more significant. Though Ms. Curran may not be a firebrand like some of her predecessors, her hard work, intelligence, and ability to calmly stick to her guns has earned her respect among her peers. A British Columbia native, Ms. Curran spent a number of years working for then provincial B.C. Public Safety minister and solicitor general Liberal MLA John Les, who is now Parliamentary secretary to Premier Christy Clark, before arriving on the Hill. Ms. Curran’s familiarity with West Coast politics is a continuing asset to the PMO, not just for her own knowledge, but likely for her connections as well, as eyes remain planted on the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline negotiations, which faces strong opposition from provincial, federal and First Nations voices. Ms. Curran’s first job on the Hill was as director of Parliamentary affairs to then Treasury Board president Vic Toews, but by 2009 she had been recruited to the PMO ranks as a policy adviser for social affairs. By the fall of 2010, she was working as both a policy adviser and as a director of personnel and administration. Come the fall of 2011 she was promoted to serve as PMO director of policy, and has since shed her other roles in the Langevin Block office to concentrate on policy. As director of the policy unit, Ms. Curran’s hands are the last ones to review and sign off on the Prime Minister’s policy briefing book, giving her a unique opportunity to weigh in on PMO policy. Through her daily correspondence with the Prime Minister, Ms. Curran is undoubtedly plugged in to high-level conversations and has the PM’s ear.—Laura Ryckewaert


14 Stephen Rigby National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister

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t’s Stephen Rigby’s job to know exactly what’s going on at Canada’s borders and beyond so he can equip Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Cabinet with the best information available to make important security decisions. Mr. Rigby gathers information and advice from Canada’s key intelligence sources, including the Communications Security Establishment and the Privy Council Office’s Security and Intelligence Secretariat bureaucrats, and channels non-partisan analysis to the Prime Minister, Cabinet, and top public servants. He’s had the post since 2010, and in that time he’s had to deal with the negotiations on Canada and the U.S.’s perimeter security plan and the case of leaky intelligence officer Jeffrey Delisle, to name a couple of the public issues the government has had to handle in that time. It’s one of the top three jobs in the PCO, after Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters and along with associate secretary to the Cabinet Janice Charette. On the perimeter security plan, David Moloney, another Power & Influence player, reports to him. While his job is to advise Mr. Harper, that doesn’t mean Mr. Rigby is confined nearby to his office on Sparks Street in Ottawa. In 2012, Mr. Rigby travelled to Colorado Springs for meetings with North American Aerospace Command officials. He spent four days in Kabul, Afghanistan. He accompanied the Prime Minister to Beijing, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, China, for a bilateral visit, and later to Washington for the G8 and the North American Leaders’ Summit. He was in Seoul, Korea, for four days for the Nuclear Security Summit where Canada ratified the amended Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. He was also in Chicago for a NATO Summit and in Israel and Australia to meet with senior security officials, according to his public travel expense logs. Born in 1956, he got his start in the public service in 1980. He spent the first 25 years of his career in Customs and Revenue, until he was called to the Privy Council in 2005 to be assistant secretary to the Cabinet for Security and Intelligence and later acting national security adviser to the PM. He has also served as associate deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and president of CBSA.—Jessica Bruno

15 Michelle d’Auray, pictured centre on Dec. 12, 2012, with Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose after the government released the KPMG report on the F-35s and hit the ‘reset’ button on the procurement process.

D’Auray ‘no-nonsense meat-and-potatoes manager’ That doesn’t mean her new job is a walk in the park— Michelle d’Auray PWGSC has its own challenges, observers say. Deputy Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada

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ichelle d’Auray, deputy minister of Public Works, has a reputation for getting the job done. Ms. d’Auray left the demanding job of Secretary to the Treasury Board in November 2012 after getting the ball rolling on its strategic and operating review, which as set out in the 2012 budget, is cutting $5.2-billion from public service budgets over three years. “She’s pretty tough…known as a no-nonsense meatand-potatoes manager,” says Andrew Graham, Queen’s University public administration professor and former assistant deputy minister.

While the department was lauded for its handling of the shipbuilding contract awards in 2011, Ms. d’Auray now leads the deputy minister level governance committee tasked with the politically explosive job of overseeing the search for an appropriate fighter jet for Canada, and rebuilding the credibility of its jet procurement process. Public Works is in charge of maintaining thousands of government properties housing countless public servants. As the government moves to modernize the civil service, the department is in charge of overhauling buildings on time and under budget. It’s also in charge of the highprofile 25-year, at least $5-billion, plan to restore and revamp the Parliamentary Precinct.—Jessica Bruno

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The Top 25

Baltacioglu: in nexus of Canadian bureaucracy Yaprak Baltacioglu Treasury Board Secretary

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romoted to the post of Treasury Board secretary in November 2012, Yaprak Baltacioglu is at the nexus of the Canadian bureaucracy. She kept a low profile in her new post last year, but she has had her hands full working with Treasury Board President Tony Clement as the government moves to modernize the public service, cut 19,200 civil servant jobs, and $5.2-billion in costs over three years. The Treasury Board is the government’s main negotiator when it comes to the contracts of hundreds of thousands of public servants. As the government tries to win lucrative concessions on salaries and benefits, it will be a tough slog. Ms. Baltacioglu is a good manager who has “proven herself on complex programs” and who will likely handle TBS’s myriad HR functions with aplomb, says Andrew Graham, Queen’s University public administration professor and former assistant deputy minister. “She’s obviously the up and comer,” he adds. Running Transport, Infrastructure and Communities during the recession,

16 Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

She’s got the power: Treasury Board Secretary Yaprak Baltacioglu is at the centre of the government’s moves to modernize the federal public service and cut billions of dollars in costs. Ms. Baltacioglu got a gold star from the Auditor General’s Office for her department’s administration of the government’s stimulus plan, getting billions of dollars to shovel-ready projects in a timely and responsible manner. At Transport Canada she dealt with not only a challenging program but a

challenging minister: John Baird, now Foreign Affairs minister. “She worked with a hard minister to work with at the time, Baird, very successfully,” notes Prof. Graham. Observers say she is one of the lead horses in the race to the Clerk of the Privy Council job, whenever current head Wayne Wouters decides to call it a day. “She’s certainly on the inside track,” says Prof. Graham. Ms. Baltacioglu hails from Turkey, where she earned a law degree at Istanbul University. She has a Masters in Public Administration from Carleton University. In 1989 she joined the public service and rose through the ranks of Agriculture Canada, where she has spent most of her career. She’s also worked at Environment Canada, where she was director general of international relations, and in the Privy Council Office. At PCO starting in 2002 she served first as assistant secretary to Cabinet for social development policy, and then as deputy secretary to Cabinet for operations. It was there she met her husband, Robert Fonberg, who makes up the other half of their deputy minister power couple as head of National Defence.—Jessica Bruno

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The Top 25

17 Guy Saint-Jacques, right, Canada’s ambassador to China, pictured in September 2012 in Ottawa, with Yin Guomei, left, wife of Chinese ambassador Zhang Junsai, and Sylvie Cameron, Mr. Saint-Jacques’ wife. Photograph by Sam Garcia, Embassy

Saint-Jacques arrives in China as Canada trade policy shifts East Guy Saint-Jacques Canadian Ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques, a Mandarinspeaking career diplomat who holds a master’s degree from Laval University, was appointed in the summer of 2012 to what’s become Canada’s second most-important diplomatic posting (behind Washington, D.C.). China-watchers had expected Prime Minister Stephen Harper to appoint a former politician to the job, to act as a conduit between Beijing’s leadership and the Langevin Block, but, apparently both David Emerson and Stockwell Day turned the job down. At the time of Mr. Saint-Jacques’ appointment, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird assured the Chinese that they were getting an ambassador who had direct access to Canada’s top politicians. “He’ll have close links right to the top, both with me and the Prime Minister, senior leadership of the public service and business communities here in Canada,” Mr. Baird told reporters.


Mr. Saint-Jacques replaced David Mulroney, who took a job with the Canada Centre For Global Security Studies at the University of Toronto. Mr. Saint-Jacques joined the foreign service in 1977 and served two stints in Beijing before being appointed ambassador. He is Canada’s former chief negotiator on climate change. He has also served in New York City and Washington, and held the post of deputy high commissioner in London. Mr. Saint-Jacques arrived in Beijing as the government’s foreign policy swung from one that was critical of China’s economic and political polices to one more favourable to investment and forging closer ties. Canada recently signed a bilateral trade and investment protection deal with China, and is working on a proposed trade deal for a block of countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. Mr. SaintJacques took up his position at a crucial point in the negotiations and will continue to play an influential role. —Mark Bourrie

Kennedy at centre of government’s drive for trade deals Simon Kennedy International Trade deputy minister

Since joining the public service in 1990, Simon Kennedy, 43, has had a meteoric rise through the ranks. He’s worked in senior roles in the Privy Council Office, was Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s representative at the Canada-U.S. Beyond the Border Working Group, and most recently was the head of the foreign investment review branch at Industry Canada where he worked on high profile cases such as BHP Billiton’s proposed takeover of Saskatchewan’s Potash Corp., and until being appointed deputy minister of International Trade in November 2012, was working on reviewing the sale of Canadian oil sands company Nexen to China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd. Mr. Kennedy now holds the top position in a department of pivotal importance to the government’s drive for trade deals. Mr. Harper has placed new trade deals at the centre of Canada’s economic growth strategy, so Mr. Kennedy has been busy with negotiations with India, China, the European Union and the AsiaPacific region. —Mark Bourrie

18 Photograph by Cynthia Münster, The Hill Times

The Top 25

Knubley front and centre in all things foreign investment John Knubley 19 Industry Canada Deputy Minister

Soon after he moved into his new office in November 2012 as Industry Canada’s deputy minister, John

John Knubley, Industry Canada’s DM. Knubley was handed one of the most complex and contentious files facing the government: deciding whether the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC could buy the Alberta oil sands company Nexen. While the government is supportive of foreign investment in Canada, polls showed a strong majority of Albertans opposed this particular deal. Mr. Knubley personally headed a small working group to determine if the deal would meet the net benefit test, Sec. 20 of the Investment Canada Act, which outlines


a six-point criterion for assessing whether a foreign acquisition is in Canada’s interests. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced it was in Canada’s interest and the government green-lit the $15.2-billion deal in December 2012. However, Mr. Harper also said that foreign investment rules will become clearer for state-owned companies, and Mr. Knubley will be at the heart of this review. Mr. Knubley holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard and an economics degree from Oxford.—Mark Bourrie

John Manley President and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives John Manley has a long career in politics that brought him very close to 24 Sussex Dr. Mr. Manley was one of the most powerful and capable members of then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien’s Cabinet, holding several important portfolios, including Finance and deputy prime minister. In that job, he quarterbacked the country’s legal and political reaction to the terrorist


attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., of Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Manley decided to leave politics rather than challenge Paul Martin for the leadership of the Liberal Party in 2003. After a stint at McCarthy Tétrault LLP law shop and consulting work for governments and think tanks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked Mr. Manley to be part of the three-member panel studying Canada’s role in Afghanistan. At the beginning of 2010, Mr. Manley became president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. He also serves on the boards of several large corporations and is a generous donor of his time to the non-profit sector. Mr. Manley is well-connected with both the Liberals and Tories. His organization is the voice of the CEOs of the 150 largest corporations in the country, which,


Manley has the ear of both Harper and Flaherty 20

John Manley has a long career in politics that brought him very close to 24 Sussex Dr. between them, control half of the country’s GDP. He has the ear of both the Prime Minister and the minister of Finance and also has access to the country’s media elite.—Mark Bourrie

The Top 25

Canada’s chief of defence staff will have a busy year Thomas J. Lawson

Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff Chief of Defence Staff and General Tom Lawson took charge of the Department of National Defence while the military was in a time of transition. The Afghan and Libyan missions are over and, unless something dire happens, it’s unlikely Canada’s soldiers, sailors, and Air Force personnel will be deployed in combat roles again in the near future. The military is faced with personnel cuts while at the same time needing to replace some of its most expensive equipment. As well, DND is involved in a major internal management reorganization, essentially turning back the clock on the changes made by former CDS Rick Hillier. Appointed to lead Canada’s military on Oct. 29, 2012, Gen. Lawson’s career in the Air Force gives him the background to contribute to the decision-making concerning the

21 Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

Chief of Defence Staff Tom Lawson. Training and morale in the Canadian Forces, military cuts, and F-35s will be on his plate. purchase of the F-35 fighter jets, now estimated to cost $45.8-billion over 42 years. Except for a couple of shortterm postings, Gen. Lawson has

always been chair borne. He has expertise in management and also built links to U.S. officers while serving as the deputy commander of NORAD. When he was appointed as CDS, the 37-year veteran of the Air Force said his priorities were training, replacing outdated equipment, and taking care of the country’s veterans. Training and morale in the Canadian Forces may be an issue as the military settles into a peacetime role, sheds people to cut costs, and tries to determine how it will carry out its mandate. Will it be able to afford to project Canadian military power into the Arctic? What resources will be devoted to Canada’s NATO obligations? And what can the military do to help the veterans of Afghanistan and Canada’s other conflicts? Gen. Lawson, who holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Royal Military College, may find it very hard to clear his desk this year. —Mark Bourrie

Beverley McLachlin

Chief Justice Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin presides over a Supreme Court that is no longer the lightning rod of the 1990s, when it was criticized for creating “judge-made law” and was supposedly packed with activist left-wing judges. Ms. McLachlin, appointed to the chief justice role in 2000, was mainly responsible for that. Her court has rarely been

accused of coddling criminals. Even when contentious legislation, such as anti-prostitution laws have been struck down, the court has given the government plenty of time to pass new legislation. Ms. McLachlin, a Pincher Creek, Alta., native who was called to the Alberta Bar in 1969, has had no serious problems with the Harper government, which is resisting any urges that it may have had to replace departing judges with right-wing activist judges. Ms. McLachlin’s poised to preside over other contentious issues, exerting her quiet influence in several legal matters. —Mark Bourrie


Chief Justice McLachlin exerts quiet influence 22 Here comes the judge: Canada’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. Power & Inf luence 2013—

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PM’s top spokesman is on 24/7


Novak is PM’s gatekeeper

Ray Novak spends his days talking to all the important people in the world, relaying messages from the PM and getting feedback from far and wide. Work, work, work: Andrew MacDougall has a lot of power as the PM’s spokesperson.

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23 Andrew MacDougall

Director of Communications for the Prime Minister of Canada

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n April 2012, Mr. MacDougall, 37, was named Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s seventh director of communications after former Hill Times and Toronto Star columnist Angelo Persichilli, who took the top job in the Prime Minister’s Office just seven months previously, resigned. The bilingual Mr. MacDougall, who as the PMO’s second-ranked media spinner under Mr. Persichilli, had already made a favourable impression on reporters, moved fairly seamlessly into the promotion. A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Mr. MacDougall joined the Conservative research office after a career in Toronto as a freelance writer. In 2008, he moved to communications firm Hill and Knowlton Strategies, where he worked for eight months. He was back in the


PMO after eight months, working as deputy press secretary under then-communications director Kory Teneycke. Now in the top job, Mr. MacDougall acts as spokesman for a Prime Minister who doesn’t like to speak to most members of the media. It’s a tough job that requires him to be available to the Prime Minister and able to help put out political fires with very little notice. This year, he’ll be spokesman on important issues like the trade deals that are expected to be wrapped up by the end of 2013. He’ll also have to carry the message on further government cuts, military procurement issues like the F-35 fighter jets, fallout from the robocall scandal, and anything new that jumps up from the bushes. It’s 24/7, Mr. MacDougall.—Mark Bourrie

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Ray Novak PMO principal secretary

ay Novak has been principal secretary to the Prime Minister since 2008, when that position was created for him. He is one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s gatekeepers, someone who is at Mr. Harper’s side through most of his work day. He’s been on the Hill with Mr. Harper since 2001, when Mr. Harper was an opposition MP trying to create a new Conservative Party. Before Mr. Harper made his political comeback, Mr. Novak worked with the future PM as a researcher at the National Citizens Coalition. Before that, Mr. Novak was a researcher at the Fraser Institute. When Mr. Harper was opposition leader, Mr. Novak was installed in an apartment over the garage at Stornoway. Unlike so many chiefs of staff and directors of communication, Mr. Novak has shown staying power and is the closest person to Mr. Harper. “He [Mr. Novak] spends his days talking to all of the important people in the world, relaying messages from the PM and getting feedback from far and wide,” says one insider. —Mark Bourrie

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How do you like him now: Justin Trudeau has rock star appeal, but does he have the chops to take the Liberal leadership?

Win or lose, Trudeau will influence Liberal Party’s return to power Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

Justin Trudeau Liberal MP

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ustin Trudeau’s candidacy for federal Liberal leader was always expected, though some Liberals believed he would give this race a pass. He didn’t and instead came out early as the candidate to beat. The 42-year-old son of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who represents the Montreal riding of Papineau, Que., was already an influential member of the Liberal caucus— not for his less-than-stellar performance in the House of Commons, but because of his star power in Canada. First elected to the House of Commons in 2008 and re-elected in 2011, Mr. Trudeau has been a major draw to Liberal riding association fundraising events across the country. He can easily fill small town and big town community halls, which organizers have taken advantage of by adding his name to event lineups to guarantee sales of excess tickets. Fundraising has been difficult for the Liberals since they lost power, and Mr. Trudeau has earned a lot of IOUs. Prior to elected life, Mr. Trudeau was chair of the youth program Katimavik, which the Conservative government recently cut funding to, and was a math and French teacher in British Columbia. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from McGill University, and a bach-


elor of education degree from the University of British Columbia. Although his stardom comes mostly from his father’s side, he also has political genes on his mother, Margaret Sinclair’s side. His grandfather was James Sinclair, a former federal Liberal fisheries minister. Mr. Trudeau has also successfully wooed much of the Parliamentary media, who, for a change, have a celebrity to cover; but he is also influencing the media agenda through the leadership race, set to conclude in Ottawa on April 14. He’s got a strong youth corps (with more than 173,000 Twitter followers at last count), large support in caucus and in the party establishment, and a smart campaign team. But does he have the chops to take the Liberal leadership? So far, despite some gaffes and embarrassing old TV interview footage, he’s doing better than his father was at this stage of the campaign. The late Pierre Trudeau had to fight for the leadership every step of the way and finally won it on the convention floor after four ballots in 1968. If Justin Trudeau does lose, he may do some soul-searching about his political future. Regardless, Mr. Trudeau—who is married to Quebec TV host Sophie Grégoire and who have two children— will be playing an influential role in rebuilding the Liberal Party, which sank to third place in the House of Commons for the first time in its history in the May 2011 election. But it won’t be easy.—Mark Bourrie

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Politicians

Aglukkaq keeps a low profile, but a strong minister

Leona Aglukkaq Health Minister


L

eona Aglukkaq was named Canada’s federal Health minister in 2008 after winning her Nunavut riding with nearly 50 per cent of the vote. Although she’s had a low-key profile, Ms. Aglukkaq, the first Inuk to be at the federal Cabinet table, won respect from colleagues on both sides of the House for her handling of the government’s response to the 2009 outbreak of swine flu. Recently, she’s handled important issues such as the investigation of pharmacy fraud, the problems associated with the addictive painkiller OxyContin, which has become a serious social problem in many Canadian First Nations, issues related to child safety in amateur sports, and cigarette package labelling. Prior to federal politics, Ms. Aglukkaq, 45, served as a former member of the Nunavut Legislative Assembly and territorial Executive Council, where she held the posts of Finance minister, and later, Health minister. Before getting elected, Ms. Aglukkaq also served as deputy clerk of the Nunavut Legislative Assembly and was a public servant. In August, 2012, she was appointed chair of the Arctic Council, an organization with representatives from nations bordering the Arctic Ocean, and was made minister of the Arctic Council for Canada. Ms. Aglukkaq is one of the strongest ministers in the House of Commons and at the helm of one of the government’s largest departments. She has managed to dodge quite a few bullets in the past four years.—Mark Bourrie

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lobbymonitor.ca 30 —Power & Inf luence 2013

Politicians

Ambrose a solid, capable and ‘well-regarded’ minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose


Public Works Minister

This 43-year-old Edmonton MP, who is fluent in four languages and holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Alberta, has held some of the tougher portfolios in the Harper government. She got off to a bumpy start in her first portfolio, Environment. There, she brawled with climate change activists and was blamed for stifling an Environment Canada scientist trying to promote his science fiction climate change-themed novel. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to send pit bull John Baird into that department to pull it together, and Ms. Ambrose was given the ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs. She then went to Labour, yet another low-priority ministry, before being appointed minister of Western Diversification and, in January, 2010, minister of Public Works. Here, Ms. Ambrose has revived her career. Insiders say she has “picked up the ball” at PWGSC and is “well regarded” at the Cabinet table. The department has been praised, even by the opposition parties, for the way it handled procurement contracts for shipbuilding. She was then handed the controversial F-35 fighter acquisition file, taking it over from the Department of National Defence after it emerged as one of the government’s more controversial programs. Ms. Ambrose will continue to play an influential role as the F-35 procurement process unfolds. Ms. Ambrose is also the minister responsible for the Status of Women, and in 2012 angered prochoice groups when she supported a private member’s motion that critics said would have opened the door to the restoration of an abortion law. To her credit, she has also championed International Day of the Girl and has made investments in this area. Ms. Ambrose has emerged in the past couple of years as a solid, capable, and gaffe-free minister of a department that comes with a lot of pitfalls. She’s one to watch in 2013. —Mark Bourrie


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Politicians

NDP House leader part of Mulcair’s inner circle athan Cullen is the 40-year-old MP for the riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C., who is one of the most senior New Democrats as the party’s House leader and who has party leader Thomas Mulcair’s confidence. First elected in 2004 and re-elected three times, Mr. Cullen has become an influential politico for his advocacy on cooperating on the left spectrum in order to defeat the Conservative Party in the 2015 election. He’s an advocate of joint primary nominations in ridings where opposition parties have a chance of beating Tory incumbents. Winning support for that idea should test Cullen’s skills in strategic planning and conflict resolution. He became well-known in the 2012 NDP leadership campaign, placing a surprising third behind Mr. Mulcair and fellow frontrunner Brian Topp. Originally from Toronto, and a graduate of Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., Mr. Cullen moved to B.C. to work as a business consultant. Prior to politics, he spent several years in the 1990s working on aid projects in Central and South America. As a more business-oriented politician, Mr. Cullen has the respect of many Tory and Liberal MPs.—Mark Bourrie

Nathan Cullen NDP House Leader


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Fantino considered valuable at Cabinet table Julian Fantino


International Cooperation Minister

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ulian Fantino spent 40 years in law enforcement, rising through the ranks of Toronto’s tough downtown divisions before moving to more placid London, Ont., as chief. He was lured back to head theYork Region police department, was chief of the massive Metro Toronto force, then was appointed commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, before entering politics. As a police chief, he had been an outspoken advocate of tougher sentencing and victims’ rights, policy areas in which he’s still active. Mr. Fantino, 70, was elected to the House of Commons in a byelection in November 2010, and was appointed minister of State (Seniors) two months later. He was promoted to associate minister of National Defence, with


specific responsibilities for procurement, in May 2011, and held the position until last July. It was a tough job. Mr. Fantino had to carry the can on the government’s controversial plan to buy F-35 fighter planes through a sole-source contract. Despite, or perhaps because of, heavy scripting by the PMO, Mr. Fantino was placed in the awkward position of defending a program that

was quickly taking on the air of a boondoggle, and was the minister in charge of delivering the government’s evolving story on the legal status of whatever contracts may or may not have existed for the jets. Now, as minister of International Cooperation, he’s put some distance between himself and those embarrassing months. He replaced Bev Oda, who quit politics after a troubled term in the department. Mr. Fantino has, so far, proven himself to be a more successful cop than a politician, but the new portfolio gives him the opportunity to get his career back on track. One insider said that Mr. Fantino is a valuable asset at the Cabinet table, especially given the Conservative government’s law and order agenda, and despite getting punted from the associate minister role, Prime Minister Stephen Harper moved him into a troubled department seemingly to revitalize it after Ms. Oda’s spending indiscretions.—Mark Bourrie

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Politicians

Denis Lebel Transport Minister Former municipal politician Denis Lebel has represented the Québec City-area riding of Roberval-LacSaint-Jean since 2007. He was appointed minister of state for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec in 2008. After the 2011 election, the Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities portfolio was added to Mr. Lebel’s duties. Mr. Lebel is one of the survivors of the brief beachhead that the Tories made in the Québec City area in 2006. Mr. Lebel is the senior minister for the region, but his power and influence come from the strong links he has forged with Canada’s municipalities.


Lebel: PM’s senior Cabinet minister in Québec City region Mr. Lebel is the minister who will decide on the federal government’s share of funding for large public transit projects, bridge and highway reconstruction, and billions of dollars in other spending that the cities say they need. He has been touring the country discussing priorities with municipal politicians and, in November 2012, outlined the government’s long-term position to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Mr. Lebel has made it clear that, despite opposition from some city politicians and federal critics, he wants infrastructure spending to be channeled through public-private partnerships. Mr. Lebel has also carried the ball for changes to the Navigable Waters Act that will drastically cut

Transport Minister Denis Lebel is one of the survivors of the brief beachhead the Conservatives made in the Québec City area in 2006. the number of rivers and lakes that are covered by the act. Critics of the changes say they open up many of Canada’s lakes and rivers to uninterrupted development. As a political minister, Mr. Lebel, a former member of the Bloc Québécois, is a key link between the Harper government and Quebec. Since that province, and, especially Montreal, have a long list of projects that need funding—from the new Champlain Bridge to the antiquated and decaying expressways downtown—Mr. Lebel will be an important asset to the feds.—Mark Bourrie

Senate Government Leader Marjory LeBreton, pictured with SUN TV’s David Akin, Reuters’ David Ljunggren, and CTV’s Roger Smith, has access to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and has kept his trust, despite their ideological differences.

Marjory LeBreton Government Senate Leader

Marjory LeBreton started her career working for John Diefenbaker during the 1963 federal election campaign, giving her 50 years of experience at the centre of the Conservative political machine. A former appointments director


to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Sen. LeBreton has served as government leader in the Senate since Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power. She has just over two years before her Senate term expires. A Red Tory, she initially opposed the merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, but after it was finalized, she embraced the new party.


PM’s lead player in the Senate Mr. Harper has relied on Sen. LeBreton’s managerial and political skills through the time when the Tories were the smaller caucus in the Senate, and continues to count on her to shepherd legislation through the Upper Chamber now that Conservatives dominate the Senate. Her long experience on the Hill and her grasp of Ottawa and its key players have been useful resources for the Prime Minister and his relatively young staff. Sen. LeBreton has been called upon by Mr. Harper to do some diplomacy with the press. Sen. LeBreton has played “good cop” to Mr. Harper’s “bad cop” on the campaign trail. A personable and popular Senator who doesn’t engage in over-the-top partisanship and is well-known for community work for organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and is respected by her peers for her experience and brains, Sen. LeBreton has access to Prime Minister Harper and has kept his trust, despite ideological differences.—Mark Bourrie

Leslie one of sharpest MPs on NDP front bench

Politicians

Megan Leslie NDP MP

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DP MP Megan Leslie, deputy party leader, is one of the sharpest MPs on the NDP front bench. First elected in 2008, Leslie, 39, represents the riding of Halifax, N.S. In 2009, she was voted Favourite Up and Comer by The Hill Times and Rookie MP of the Year by her colleagues in a Maclean’s magazine poll. Ms. Leslie was born in the northern Ontario gold mining town of Kirkland Lake and studied law at Dalhousie University. Ms. Leslie has been a tough warrior against climate change, often trying to pin down members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Cabinet on whether they believe that humans are responsible for it. Ms. Leslie, who is fluently bilingual, is a strong advocate for aboriginal peoples rights. She’s also advocated on behalf of the Finnish community of northern Ontario (her mother is Finnish), who make up a sizeable portion of voters in several ridings north of Lake Superior. And she’s an outspoken defender of the rights of lesbian, gay, transsexual and transgendered people. Ms. Leslie has a quick sense of humour, a strong presence on television, and a sharp mind. In her home riding, she’s an advocate for tenants’ rights and runs workshops on how to get a federal public service job. She’s a likely future leader of the party. —Mark Bourrie

Sing us a song, Megan: NDP MP Megan Leslie, who could actually quit her day job, sang a beautiful rendition of Patsy Cline’s Walkin’ After Midnight at the Black Sheep Inn for the Jaimie Anderson Parliamentary Internship last fall. Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

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Peter MacKay comes as close as the Tories get to being a glamorous politician.

Peter MacKay Defence Minister

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eter MacKay comes as close as the Tories get to being a glamorous politician. Scion of an important Nova Scotia political family, wealthy, and married to a dazzling Iranian-Canadian human rights activist, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the 47-year-old Mr. MacKay holds a portfolio that is important to the Conservative brand. The Harper government has made support of the military one of its most important platform planks. At the same time, the Canadian Forces are in a state of flux. The long deployment in Afghanistan is, for the most part, over. The government has been engaged in planning to determine the extent of Canada’s military involvement in the Arctic. The country’s fleet of fighter planes is near


Politicians

MacKay holds tough portfolio, important to Conservative brand the end of its life and needs to be replaced. So does the land and sea helicopter fleet. And the structure of the Canadian Forces needs to be revamped after a disastrous and expensive reorganization under former chief of the defence staff Rick Hillier. The government needs to save some money at Defence if it’s to balance the budget. So Mr. MacKay has a tough job. He has been widely criticized for his role in the so far disastrous procurement process of the F-35 fighter jets. Fortunately, he’s popular and respected at DND. But criticism of his leadership has come from outside the military and has also been focused on relatively minor decisions such as Mr. MacKay’s request to be picked up by military helicopter from a fishing camp. Mr. MacKay is a key player in the Tories’ organization and campaigns in Atlantic Canada. He still has a strong network across the country from his days as leader of the Progressive Conservatives and candidate for leadership of the then new Conservative Party. There has been speculation that he will be shuffled out of Defence, but that appears fairly unlikely. Obviously, Mr. Harper is satisfied with the work of his erstwhile rival, although the two aren’t particularly close.—Mark Bourrie

Pauline Marois Quebec Premier

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auline Marois is far more likely to use her podium in Quebec’s National Assembly to influence events in Ottawa than to deal directly with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government. Her minority is shaky, though it will probably clip along until the Quebec Liberals choose a new leader. And while the Parti Québécois is stuck with a minority, it will be difficult for Ottawa to determine what’s campaign talk and what’s really important to the PQ. As the provinces take on more and more of the costs of the boomer generation—especially increased budgets for health and other social services—Ms. Marois and the rest of the provincial premiers will try


to squeeze Ottawa for more money. There are also resource ownership issues involving fossil fuels in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, and the potential of a looming dispute with Newfoundland over hydro development. As well, the Parti Québécois, or whoever is in power in Québec City in the next few years, will have to deal with the horrendous infrastructure problems in Montreal, especially the replacement of its antiquated and increasingly-decaying expressways, bridges and tunnels. Ottawa will stay the whipping boy for Quebec’s dire financial situation. In last November’s budget, Quebec finance minister Nicolas Marceau blamed the feds for his inability to balance the books. He claimed Ottawa had denied Quebec $15-billion that the province deserves. Quebec’s demands will likely generate the standard reaction from

Photograph courtesy of Parti Québécois

Ottawa will stay Quebec’s whipping boy

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois. Alberta and Ontario that the equalization system is already skewed toward the provinces. It’s not clear whether Ms. Marois and Mr. Harper will click on a personal level. Neither sought the other out after the last election. It may be telling that their first meeting after Ms. Marois won the premiership took place in the Congo.—Mark Bourrie

Menzies a hard worker, well-liked by Conservative caucus Ted Menzies

Minister of State for Finance Minister of State for Finance Ted Menzies has a reputation for hard work and a good grasp of Western Canadian economic issues.

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orn in Claresholm, Alta., Ted Menzies grew up in the rolling Prairies and foothills west of Claresholm. He was a successful farmer and a veteran of Prairie political battles over wheat marketing in the West. In this Parliament, Mr. Menzies seconded the motion to bring in the bill that stripped the Wheat Board of its monopoly. Elected in 2004, Mr. Menzies held several opposition critic positions. He was appointed Parliamentary secretary to the minister of Finance in 2007 and was sworn in as minister of state for Finance in January 2011, and was re-affirmed in the job after

the last election. As a junior minister, Mr. Menzies is involved in some of Finance Canada’s decision-making but he also has an important public relations role. Mr. Menzies has a reputation for hard work and a good grasp of Western Canadian economic issues. That, and the country’s finances, are central to the Conservative program. Mr. Menzies works closely with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who has the Prime Minister’s ear. Mr. Menzies has made few gaffes and has a reputation as a hard worker, which likely also endears him with the PMO. He may eventually emerge as a toptier minister. He and his wife Sandy have two children and maintain their Alberta farm.—Mark Bourrie

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37


Politicians

Politicians

Moore underrated James Moore

Canadian Heritage Minister

The name’s Moore: James Moore.


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ames Moore, the 36-year-old MP for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, B.C., is a 12-year veteran of the House of Commons. Mr. Moore is one of the more libertarian members of the old Reform Party caucus and backs same-sex marriage. He also surprised old-time Tories when one of their least favourite institutions, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was spared extreme spending cuts. Toronto Star syndicated columnist Chantal Hébert recently picked Mr. Moore as the year’s most underrated federal politician on CBC The National’s At Issue panel. As minister of Heritage, one of his first major decisions was to cancel plans for a $45-million National Portrait Gallery in the old U.S. Embassy Building on Wellington Street. A subsequent plan for a gallery in a Calgary office complex has fallen through. Mr. Moore has taken on the government’s efforts to change the

way Canadians see their country. The Canadian Museum of Civilization has been renamed the Canadian Museum of History and will have a new role reaching out to other museums across the country. It will also have a coordinating role in the celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017. Mr. Moore also ran into a bit of trouble when he criticized a sex-ed display at the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology. The Canadian Heritage Department is a huge, complex department with its fingers in a wide range of things, from Library and Archives Canada to the CBC. It also still has regulatory powers over aspects of telecommunications. Mr. Moore came into the job with a background in broadcasting. He also wrote a blog during his early years on the Hill and is one of the handful of Tory ministers who works Twitter on behalf of the government and the party. As a solid, bright, hard-working minister, Mr. Moore should continue to be an influential member of Cabinet.—Mark Bourrie

Rob Nicholson Justice Minister

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ob Nicholson, 60, represents the riding of Niagara Falls, Ont., and has held the position of Justice minister since 2007. He is one of the very rare insiders who were members of the Conservative caucus during Brian Mulroney’s years as prime minister. Mr. Nicholson was science minister in prime minister Kim Campbell’s brief government but lost his seat in the 1993 election. That election nearly wiped the federal Progressive Conservatives off the map. Mr. Nicholson stayed busy in Niagara-region politics and returned to Ottawa in 2004. When PM Stephen Harper won his first minority, Mr. Nicholson was given the sensitive and important job of government House leader. He spent just under a year as minister of Democratic Re-


form before his appointment as minister of Justice and Attorney General. Mr. Nicholson has been one of the government’s key people on criminal law changes and has come across as something of a moderating voice to gaffe-prone Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. Still, he’s ended house arrest for violent and serious crimes, changed the review system for mentally ill offenders to end yearly review hearings, and has worked on initiatives to fight cyber bullying and to protect senior citizens. He also toughened the country’s drug laws, with longer sentences for growing and selling marijuana, despite strong support across the country for decriminalization. Mr. Nicholson has also been an important face of the government’s War of 1812 commemoration, as he represents an area that was the scene of several of that war’s most important battles.


Nicholson in charge of ‘tough-on-crime’ agenda

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is one of the very rare insiders who was a member of the Conservative caucus during Brian Mulroney’s years as prime minister. Mr. Nicholson is one of the more important ministers from a part of the country that is home to other important Tories, including Human Resources Minister Diane Finley and her husband, Tory Senator Doug Finley. Mr. Nicholson may be more vocally at odds with the Ontario government in 2013 as Queen’s Park shakes up the Niagara casino system.—Mark Bourrie

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Oliver one of most influential members of Harper’s Cabinet I

Paradis: senior Quebec minister, big department D

espite some tough sledding this year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 38-year-old Quebec lieutenant continues to be one of the most important members of Cabinet, although he was nearly invisible in the government’s approval of the $15.2-billion CNOOC takeover of Nexen. He represents the southeastern Quebec riding of MéganticL’Érable and was first elected in 2006. Mr. Paradis was Public Works minister from 2008 to 2010, minister of Natural Resources from January 2010 until May 2011, and has been Industry minister since that time.



t may seem odd that a government supposedly so closely linked to the oil industry would have a Natural Resources Minister from Toronto. Mr. Oliver has the sometimes tricky task of defending the development of the Alberta oil sands. The 72-year-old Mr. Oliver, a Montreal-born lawyer who holds a Harvard MBA, is a former investment banker, head of the Ontario Securities Commission and CEO of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada. He was sworn in as Natural Resources Minister after the 2011 election. Not only has Mr. Oliver been the defender of the country’s oil industry, he’s also become its top salesman. The federal government still hopes the Obama administration will approve the Keystone pipeline project to carry oil from Alberta to the refineries of the U.S. Gulf Coast, but Mr. Oliver has been on the road trying to sell bitumen to India, China, and the other growing Asian markets. Mr. Oliver also deals with the provinces on energy issues. While he has resisted developing a national energy strategy, Ottawa is still being drawn into issues dealing with the potential replacement of imported oil used in Eastern Canada with Alberta oil.


Politicians

Joe Oliver

Natural Resources Minister

You don’t say: Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is the government’s lead defender of the country’s oil industry.

The national government is also a perhaps unwilling participant in the disputes arising between U.S.-based energy firms and the government of Quebec over the issue of “fracking” of the oil shale in the Montreal area. The Quebec government opposes the use of shale fracturing to exploit natural gas, but one $250-million lawsuit has already been filed against the federal government under NAFTA provisions. The development of the country’s energy resources is central to the Tories’ economic strategy. Mr. Oliver, therefore, is one of the most influential members of the Cabinet and has added important corporate connections in Calgary to his thick Bay Street Rolodex.—Mark Bourrie

Christian Paradis Industry Minister

In his role as Industry minister, he’s been given the job of creating a workable foreign investment review system, the importance of which was underlined when the Chinese staterun oil company CNOOC offered to buy the Alberta oil sands giant Nexen, and when Loews made an offer on Quebec-based Rona. As senior Quebec minister, Mr. Paradis has considerable clout. He sits next to Prime Minister Harper in the House of Commons and is the face of the government in Quebec, where the Tories hope to be some day win more seats.

In the spotlight: Industry Minister Christian Paradis has a big job, but a low profie and was criticized as invisible on the Nexen takeover. Mr. Paradis, though, has been under fire for meddling in access to information requests at Public Works. He’s also been strongly criticized for chatting about government contracts at a fundraiser he held while minister of Public Works. Mr. Paradis has been given some tough assignments, including the auction of wireless spectrum and the rejuvenation of Canada’s high-tech sector. He’s also carried the ball in Quebec on unpopular legislation such as the repeal of the gun registry and the “tough-on-crime” legislation passed last fall.—Mark Bourrie

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Rae’s experience indispensable as Liberal Party rebuilds


Politicians

There’s something about Bob: Bob Rae pictured in a scrum on the Hill.

Bob Rae

Liberal MP, Interim Liberal leader until April 14, 2013

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nterim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, 64, has said that he is looking forward to returning to life as a “regular” MP once the party chooses a permanent leader in April. It’s no wonder. He’s been busy. Observers credit Mr. Rae for keeping his party relevant and mostly disciplined in the almost two years since the last general election left them gutted and leaderless. The bilingual Rhodes Scholar is one of Parliament’s most talkative and eloquent MPs. It’s a rare Question Period or scrumming opportunity that he’s not up on his feet, posing pointed questions to the government on the issues of the day. Whether it’s fighter jets, aboriginal issues or fiscal responsibility, Mr. Rae has forwarded his party’s views impressively, making him one of the Liberal Party’s prime brand ambassadors via the televisions and newspapers of ordinary Canadians. “I was able to, I hope, keep the party relevant and central to the Parliamentary debates of 2011, 2012 and

the beginning of 2013,” he told The Canadian Press in December 2012. On energy policy and other debates, he worked to cast the party as a sensible middle ground between the ideological NDP and Conservatives. “Even as a lame duck, the interim Liberal leader continues to quack sensibly and compellingly,” writes veteran political columnist Susan Riley in The Hill Times. In the process, he’s looked more and more like the elder statesman of the House. First elected in 1978, he is the only sitting MP who was around for the constitutional debates of the early 1980s. There was also that five-year stint as premier of Canada’s most populous province. During the transition to the party’s new leadership, Mr. Rae’s experience will again likely prove indispensable. “In some ways, having a new leader who will be, thanks to me, totally briefed on what the challenges are and what we need to do, I think will be helpful,” he said. One source put it this way: Mr. Rae “has shored up a grievously weakened federal Liberal Party at a time when the Grits appear to be under siege at the federal and provincial levels. … I think that Rae has been effective as an opposition leader.” —Jessica Bruno

Lisa Raitt

Labour Minister

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abour Minister Lisa Raitt, 44, has led two major Cabinet portfolios so far in her four years on the Hill. Ms. Raitt was made Natural Resources minister just after she was elected to the House of Commons for the first time as the MP for Halton, Ont. After she landed in hot water in 2009 when a recording in which Ms. Raitt referred to thethen medical isotope shortage as a “sexy” issue and criticized Cabinet colleague Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, Ms. Raitt was shuffled out of the role and into the similarly


significant position of Minister of Labour in January 2010. Though Ms. Raitt’s comments were a political gaffe to be sure, they weren’t enough to push her out of favour with Prime Minister Stephen Harper; and even though Ms. Raitt submitted her resignation, the PM rejected it. This suggests that Ms. Raitt’s position on the Prime Minister’s Cabinet “good list” is well-cemented. Since taking over the Labour portfolio, it has been relatively smooth sailing for Ms. Raitt, who insiders say is valued for her ability to problem solve. Ms. Raitt is also a member of the newly-formed Cabinet Priorities and Planning Subcommittee on Government Administration, and is chair


Labour Minister Raitt a problem solver

Labour Minister Lisa Raitt is an effective communicator and a tough problem solver. of the Cabinet Economic Prosperity and Sustainable Growth Committee. With the government’s focus set to remain on the economy, including deficit reduction efforts, Ms. Raitt has added influence resulting from her Cabinet committee roles. —Laura Ryckewaert

Politicians

A

Photograph by Sam Garcia, Embassy

lison Redford, 47, is in a strange position for a Progressive Conservative premier of Alberta. She leads a conservative government in a right-of-centre province, yet she’s too pink for many of the power brokers in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa. While Mr. Harper didn’t come out against Ms. Redford in last year’s Alberta provincial election, many of his senior ministers supported the challenge from the even more pro-oil development Wildrose Party. The feud was similar, in many ways, to the split between Reform and the Progressive Conservatives during Brian Mulroney’s last term in office, pitting Red Tories against social and small-government conservatives. And, like the early Reform politicians, members of the Wildrose managed to talk themselves out of power. Wildrose isn’t dead and it has probably learned a lot from its unexpected crushing, so it remains a threat to eventually end the Tory dynasty in Edmonton. So where does Ms. Redford fit into Ottawa? She still has considerable clout as a young premier who is in the early years of her first majority mandate. But she also has to worry about her government’s chronic inability to balance its books, even in times of record high oil prices. The province is challenged by the pains that come with population and economic growth and must play a part in developing the social and physical infrastructure that Alberta needs to go forward. She also has to try to maintain provincial control over a resource that is very much front-of-mind among federal leaders, and keep civil relationships with both Ottawa and neighbouring provincial capitals. Not exactly an easy task.—Mark Bourrie

Redford’s vision for a pan-Canadian Vision2020 energy strategy THE FOREST PRODUCTS INDUSTRY gains momentum ON THE MOVE Political drama aside, Alison Redford has seen success in her first full year as Alberta premier. BY CHRIS PLECASH lberta Premier Alison Redford’s first full year in office has been shaky, despite winning a commanding majority in her province’s last election. Scandals involving senior officials in the Alberta government have become routine headlines, and the province’s economic growth depends on cross-border pipeline projects that face opposition outside of her control. The Wildrose Party opposition continues to hammer the premier with conflict-of-interest allegations after unsuccessfully moving that she be found in contempt of the legislature for denying she played a role in awarding the contract for a multi-billion dollar tobacco lawsuit to her ex-husband’s law firm.

A

Vision2020: Challenging the

Products:

forest products industry,

Generate an additional

governments and partners to

$20 billion in economic

push industry transformation

activity from new

even further in the area of people,

innovations and

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Learn how the government’s Budget 2013 can help the industry reach its Vision2020 goals at: fpac.ca/budget2013

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Continued on Page 45 Power & Inf luence 2013—

43

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is a member of the Priorities and Planning Cabinet Committee and is responsible for many of the Canada-U.S. border integration initiatives included in the Beyond the Border action plan.

Law, order, and wedge politics Vic Toews

Public Safety Minister

P

Photograph courtesy of Daniel Paquet, Wikipedia

ossibly still feeling euphoric after the government abolished the long-gun registry and pushed its omnibus crime legislation through the House in the fall of 2011, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews took wedge politics to the next level last February when he stated during Question Period that Liberal public safety critic Francis Scarpaleggia could either “stand with us, or stand with the child pornographers” in opposing Bill C-30, otherwise known as The Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. Public outcry was swift, and Mr. Toews soon found himself the target of a nasty Twitter campaign to divulge details of his own personal life online. Bill C-30, which would require internet service providers to disclose basic subscriber information to the RCMP and create a framework for online surveillance warrants,

Brad Wall will be one of the more influential premiers in federal-provincial relationships.

Bradd W B Wall ll

Saskatchewan Premier

B

rad Wall holds a commanding majority in the Saskatchewan Legislature, with more than half of a term left before he faces the voters again. An early convert from the Saskatchewan Progressive Conservatives to the Saskatchewan Party, Mr. Wall was one of the architects of the 2005 rewrite of the party platform that gave the upstart movement much more appeal to centrist voters and paved the way for its victory in 2007.


was unpopular even with the Conservative base and has yet to receive a second reading in the House. Lawful access legislation aside, Mr. Toews continues to serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister on a critical file for a government focused on delivering law and order. He is a member of the all-important Priorities and Planning Cabinet Committee, and is responsible for many of the Canada-U.S. border integration initiatives included in the Beyond the Border action plan. Mr. Toews made it clear that he considers reforming the RCMP a priority when he chewed out RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson for failing to produce an action plan aimed at addressing gender imbalance within the Force in a letter released to the media in November. It’s uncertain whether Mr. Toews will serve out the remainder of his fifth term as the MP for Provencher, Man. He’s long been rumoured to be next in line for a seat on Manitoba’s Court of Appeal.—Chris Plecash

Wall darling of western Canadian conservatives, but unafraid to criticize feds Since then, the Saskatchewan Party government has delivered a string of balanced budgets and has cut the provincial debt by almost 45 per cent. For the first time, Saskatchewan now has a triple-A credit rating. Mr. Wall’s government, re-elected in 2011, has also cut taxes, reduced the size of the bureaucracy, killed the provincial Human Rights Commission, and developed programs to try to keep young people from leaving the province. He has also worked to attract doctors to the province and improve both rural health care and the provincial air ambulance system. Saskatchewan has benefited from recent high oil prices and has been aggressive at developing new oil and natural gas fields. Prior to joining politics, the Swift Current, Sask., native was the direc-

tor of business development for that city. Mr. Wall, 47, holds a public administration degree from the University of Saskatchewan. Mr. Wall is not afraid to criticize his Conservative counterparts in Ottawa, and has been a vocal opponent to federal funding cuts for refugee health. Before that, he spoke out vehemently against Australia’s BHP Billiton’s attempt to take over Potash Corp. Mr. Wall—despite being a darling of western conservatives and a model both for Ottawa and provincial Tories and Alberta’s Wildrose—is expected to keep pushing for more open immigration to try to mitigate the demographic threat of an ageing population. He will be one of the more influential premiers in federal-provincial relations in 2013.—Mark Bourrie


Politicians

Politicians

Redford leading, engaging on energy file Continued from Page 43 On the economic front, her province was projected to run a $3-billion deficit in 2012, while leading all provinces with 3.8 per cent GDP growth. Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline project has been buried by public opposition since a joint review panel began to hold public consultations on the project in January 2012, and the future of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline has been mired in uncertainty since the Obama administration delayed ruling on the project until after the 2012 presidential election. Even if Northern Gateway is approved, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark has made the project’s passage to the Pacific Coast conditional on a set of costly demands for revenue sharing and safety requirements. B.C. will go to the polls in May, but the provincial NDP leads the governing Liberals by more than 20 points in opinion polling and NDP Leader Adrian Dix’s opposition to the project has been unconditional. Political drama aside, there have also been triumphs in Ms. Redford’s first full year as premier. Recognizing Alberta’s position as a global energy player, Ms. Redford has seized the opportunity to lead and engage, rather than put up firewalls around her province. Her calls for a pan-Canadian energy strategy have been endorsed by the premiers of every province and territory with the exception of B.C., and national support for and eastbound pipeline project is growing. Ms. Redford and Quebec Premier Pauline Marois ended the last Council of the Federation meeting with an agreement to establish an interprovincial working group to address the logistics of moving Alberta crude through Quebec. Polarizing in her own province, Ms. Redford remains popular across the country. She was rated Canada’s second most popular premier according to a year-end poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. She spoke to Power & Influence about these issues in December 2012. B.C. has seen early success with its carbon tax, and your own province invests revenues from carbon pricing into a tech fund. What role do you think carbon pricing—either through cap and trade or a carbon tax —should have in a pan-Canadian energy strategy? “The view that Alberta takes is that by putting a cap on emissions, we’ve been very successful in basically putting a price on carbon that allows us to look to technological innovation. We don’t think it has an adverse economic impact. “The challenge with something like cap and trade is that it makes us a little less competitive with neighbours to the south, because of course they don’t have that same policy in place. I think it’s a little premature to move to that. We’re not seeing the world move to that as quickly as people had anticipated that it would. It’s something that I know premiers want to talk about and it’s something Canadians are talking about, so I think we’ll continue to have the discussion.” You’re part of a Council of the Federation working group with Newfoundland Premier Kathy Dunderdale and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger on a national energy strategy. What is the group currently working on, and do you have any timelines in place?

“What we’ve said is that besides coming up with sort of grand principles, we wanted to take the 2007 plan and actually give it some tangible effect, particularly because we’ve seen the energy economy around the world change since 2007. That was five years ago. We see different provinces in Canada now that have different resources and are looking to develop those and market those around the world. “We thought that it needed to be built on further. What we’ve now asked energy ministers to do is put together a work plan where we’re able to come up with some concrete examples. One of those, which developed without us anticipating that it would, was the discussion with Quebec, where we’re able to share technical information. I think that over the next five or six months you’re going to see an awful lot of work done amongst officials and energy ministers that should lead to an interim report that we’re committed to bringing back to the Council of the Federation next summer.” B.C. did not sign on and the federal government has been disengaged on the issue of developing a nationwide energy strategy. How much can you hope to achieve without the support of two major jurisdictions? “The first thing I’ll say is that in Alberta we’re actually not disappointed that the federal government isn’t looking to exert jurisdiction over energy. We protect that jurisdiction quite vigorously and most premiers across the country, when we started talking about this approach, said, ‘Look, one of our pre-conditions is that we need to lead the discussion as provinces and premiers, because we have jurisdiction over our energy.’ “We’ve seen some success with respect to the federal minister of energy and the Prime Minister talking about the need for infrastructure development. I think as we move forward with respect to pipeline discussions we see interests truly aligning, whether it’s the work that we’re doing with the federal government on the Keystone pipeline, on the work that we’re seeing start to happen involving not just the premier of Quebec but the premiers of the Maritime provinces. “[O]ver time as we begin to come up with more concrete results where we’re able to say this speaks to our international success and our ability market, we’ll find particular projects that the federal government gets more involved in. “If we look at what’s going on in British Columbia, I think it’s been some time since the Council of Federation meeting and it’s not too long before the next provincial election. My view is that this is probably the time where people in British Columbia are going to start thinking about what they want to balance in terms of their economic growth and environmental sustainability. It’s not for us in Alberta to be defining what that economic growth agenda looks like for British Columbia, but my sense from people I’ve talked to ... from B.C., is that there’s a lot of people, particularly in the interior, who are very interested in seeing this project go ahead. “I think it’s going to be interesting to see in the next three or four months how even the work that we’ve done on a Canadian energy strategy, has begun to inform some of the thinking and discussion that could take place in the provincial election in British Columbia.” Power & Inf luence 2013—

45

One of Mulcair’s top staffers, key strategists Karl Bélanger

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s Principal Secretary

K

arl Bélanger, 37, is one of the top staffers in official opposition NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s office. Before moving into the principal secretary’s office, Mr. Bélanger was press secretary to former leader Jack Layton. In that role, he developed strong links with the national media, flexing his influence by making the NDP relevant on the national media stage. He has also been a public spokesperson and spinner for the party, writing columns and appearing on TV panel

sues and prepared him for the 2011 French leaders’ televised debate, which proved to be an important turning point in that election. Now, in Mr. Mulcair’s OLO, he preps the leader for Question Period and works to develop the talent in the crop of young Quebec MPs elected in 2011. The party’s survival as official opposition and its potential for winning government rests in retaining the big bridgehead the NDP made in Quebec in the last election. Although Mr. Mulcair, a former Quebec provincial Cabinet minister, has much more experience with the province’s complex politics than Layton did, Mr. Bélanger remains a key person in this task. —Mark Bourrie

shows. He was one of the architects of the 2011 so-called “Orange Crush,” which saw the NDP go from 37 seats to an historic 103, picking up 59 of them in Quebec. Mr. Bélanger ran unsuccessfully in Quebec for a seat in the House, first in Jonquière in 1993, and then in Lac Saint-Jean in a 1996 byelection. The following year, he started working for the NDP. He also previously served as press secretary to former NDP leader Alexa McDonough. When Mr. Bélanger joined the NDP staff, he was just one of two francophones working full-time for the federal party. Mr. Bélanger coached Jack Layton on Quebec is-

Neil Brodie

Chief of Staff to Treasury Board President Tony Clement

A

s director of policy to the Treasury Board President since May 2011, Neil Brodie has been heavily involved in the deficit reduction efforts undertaken by the Conservative government over the past year. Now chief of staff to Mr. Clement— who was appointed chair of the newly formed Cabinet committee, the Priorities and Planning Subcommittee on Government Administration, this past September—Mr. Brodie will continue to play a prominent role in helping manage the government’s new spending review efforts. Since arriving on the Hill in 2006, Mr. Brodie has held a variety of posi-


tions with a variety of ministers, and has worked in the Status of Women, International Trade and Public Safety portfolios during his years in Ottawa. Beginning on the Hill as a senior policy adviser to then Public Safety minister Senator Michael Fortier, Mr. Brodie went on to serve as Mr. Fortier’s director of Parliamentary affairs and later his chief of staff. Mr. Brodie began working for his current boss in April 2010 when Mr. Clement was still minister of Industry, serving as his director of policy. When Mr. Clement’s recent chief of staff Tenzin Khangsar announced he would be leaving the Hill this past October, Mr. Brodie stepped up to act in the position and eventually was tapped to permanently take on the role. Though Mr. Brodie’s career on the Hill may have began under the


Brodie to play prominent role in government spending review

A top staffer: Neil Brodie, chief of staff to Treasury Board President Tony Clement. shadow off hi his older brother, h d ld b th h fformer PMO chief of staff Ian Brodie, who is now a senior counselor at Hill and Knowlton’s, he has since stepped out of it and has developed a solid reputation of his own.—Laura Ryckewaert


Political Staffers

GLOBAL INNOVA

OR

Don Tapscott Business Visionary, Bestselling Author of 14 Books, Worldwide Authority on Innovation, Media and Technology, TED Speaker. Trent University Graduate, B.Sc. Psychology and Statistics

Trentu.ca/luminaries

Staffers

W

hen Raoul Gébert became campaign manager to NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair in the fall of 2011, he was a new face on the Hill. But just over a year later, Mr. Gébert has established himself as a powerful player in the NDP caucus as Mr. Mulcair’s chief of staff, particularly as a result of his Quebec credentials which are an asset in a 101-member caucus made up of 58 Quebec MPs. Originally from Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Gébert, 33, moved to Canada to study at McGill University in 1999. Once in Montreal, Que., Mr. Gébert quickly became familiar with the NDP, who at the time had only 19 seats in the House of Commons (and would drop to just 13 seats come the 2000 election). Influenced by his parents’ left-leaning political views, Mr. Gébert quickly fell for the NDP.

Over the years Mr. Gébert has volunteered on a number of NDP campaigns, and is the former president of the NDP’s Outremont, Que., riding association, Mr. Mulcair’s riding. Come the party’s historic 2011 federal election, which saw the party become official opposition for the first time in history, Mr. Gébert was serving as president of the NDP’s Quebec wing, after being elected to the role in the fall of 2010. Following the death of NDP leader Jack Layton and the start of the race for a new NDP leader, then leadership hopeful Mr. Mulcair asked Mr. Gébert to serve as his campaign manager. Shortly after Mr. Gébert’s addition to the team, Mr. Mulcair’s campaign began to take off, and following the Outremont MP’s election as the new NDP leader, Mr. Gébert was brought in to run his OLO.

Though a quiet presence, Mr. Gébert is known for his sharp mind. He has benefited from the tutelage of NDP matriarch Anne McGrath, who has since left the Hill and is working as managing director of Ensight Canada, when she stayed in OLO following Mr. Muclair’s election as NDP leader in March 2012 to help make the transition to the new leadership. Having been Chief of Staff to NDP recruited not once but twice to work Leader Thomas Mulcair for Mr. Mulcair, it’s clear Mr. Gébert has the ear of the official opposition leader. —Laura Ryckewaert

Raoul Gébert

Keller runs Baird’s office riginally from Edmonton, Alta., Mr. Keller, 36, began his career on the Hill in 1997 as an assistant to then Reform MP John Williams, but it wasn’t until 2006 when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives came to minority government and Mr. Keller was hired as a special assistant to then Treasury Board president John Baird that he truly began climbing the Hill ladder. Since then, he has taken on a range of significant roles within the party apparatus including serving as director of Parliamentary affairs and director of communications to Mr. Baird, as chief of staff to Chief Government Whip Gordon O’Connor, and even as executive director of the Conservative Resource Group, the party’s research bureau. And amazingly, from June 2005 until recently, Mr. Keller was running ministerial offices and units while contending with not one,



O

Garry Keller Chief of Staff to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

but two failing kidneys, requiring nightly dialysis treatments. Now, Mr. Keller has successfully undergone transplant surgery and is back on the Hill in full-fighting force. The fact that his boss, Mr. Baird, orchestrated a blood clinic in the Centre Block foyer in September 2011 to try and find a donor match for him seems a pretty clear sign of his strong position within the Conservative caucus. And while Mr. Keller has certainly developed a close relationship with Mr. Baird since being hired by him in 2006, within the same time span Mr. Baird has developed into a leading Cabinet voice and has built a close relationship with the Prime Minister. Influential by proximity, Mr. Keller knows how to keep noses out of trouble on the Hill. Now heading Mr. Baird’s Foreign Affairs ministerial office, Mr. Keller has the smarts to handle such a demanding file, and has proven he is able to hold down the fort when Mr. Baird is away.—Laura Ryckewaert

Photograph by Jessica Bruno, The Hill Times

OLO chief of staff has sharp mind, a quiet presence

Public Servants

Stewart Beck

Photograph courtesy of NRCAN

Canadian High Commissioner to India Stewart Beck, Canada’s high commissioner to India, pictured in this file photo with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

Stewart Beck: Canada’s man in India S

tewart Beck was working on a degree in physical education at Queen’s University in the late 1970s when one of his professors inspired him to study for a master’s in business administration and steered him toward a career in the diplomatic corps. He was intrigued by a colleague and friend who worked as a trade negotiator in Cuba, and he followed a similar path. It took him to the United States, Taiwan, and China, with some stints back in Ottawa. Mr. Beck is now the Canadian high commissioner to the Republic of India, with concurrent accreditation to the Kingdom of Bhutan and to Nepal. Arriving in New Delhi in 2010, Mr. Beck took the job as the Conservative government embarked on negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement with India, home to 1.5 billion people and one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Mr. Beck and his negotiation team hope to have a deal by the end of the year, but there have been some stumbling blocks. For example, India is resisting any interference from Canada in its military nuclear program while pushing for continued nuclear imports from Canada. During a trip to India last fall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and International Trade Minister Ed Fast met with their Indian counterparts to help move the negotiations for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) forward. Canada and India already do $5-billion a year in trade, but CEPA is supposed to push that number to $15-billion by 2015. Mr. Beck will be taking his diplomatic skills to the maximum as Canada and India forge closer trade ties.—Mark Bourrie

CRTC chair Blais a champion for consumers’ rights Jean-Pierre Blais CRTC Chair

T

he newly-appointed chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has become a rather unlikely champion for the rights of consumers. He is a career public servant who held a string of senior positions at Treasury Board, Canadian Heritage, and the CRTC. A McGill University law grad, he also holds a master’s in law from Melbourne University in Australia, where he specialized in copyright, media policy, and international trade. Mr. Blais took over an agency facing serious challenges to its mandate from both a government that has promised more deregulation and a media landscape that is using technology, especially the internet, to break down the

regulatory walls governments have erected in the last 80 years. In recent decisions, Mr. Blais and the rest of the CRTC have come down on the side of consumers. In 2012, they shot down the proposed merger between Bell and Astral, saying the new conglomerate would dominate the radio and specialty channel businesses, which would not be in the public interest. (Bell and Astral have since recrafted their proposal and are trying again.) The CRTC has also taken on the sticky issue of cellphone contracts, which many Canadians feel are too long and too expensive. Mr. Blais locked horns with Corus over a proposed license for the Oprah Network, and has another four years left in his contract. It will be interesting to see what other issues the CRTC It’s showtime: tackles as the media evolve and Jean-Pierre Blais. fragment.—Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

49

Canadian Alliance of Student Associations CANADA NEEDS MORE EDUCATED PEOPLE WITH LESS DEBT Canada’s population is aging and our labour force is in decline. Our future prosperity depends more than ever on two crucial resources: highly educated citizens and world-class research. The success of Canada’s colleges, universities, and graduates is critical to sustained economic growth and the societal well-being of our nation. Increasing the amount of post-secondary graduates in Canada will help to provide much needed labour market flexibility in the years to come. The incentives for individuals to get a college or university education are obvious, but the opportunity to attend is unequal and the associated costs are increasing. Students across Canada believe that no barrier should stand between any willing and qualified person and a high quality post-secondary education. Canada’s post-secondary education system is also a magnet for global talent. Just as more students from around the world are learning in new settings, digitized content now allows access to ideas from anywhere. Knowledge is now created and shaped in a global context and the policy environment surrounding our research has to keep pace if Canada is to be a global innovation leader.

Accelerating technological advancements guarantee that change will happen at a faster rate and on a larger scale than in the past. In this environment, Canadians will find that the most useful tool for achieving success is knowledge. It will be vital to improve not only the quality and impact of research outcomes in Canada, but also the distribution and communication of these outcomes. Canadians expect the federal government to play a leading role in providing financial assistance, as well as funding world-class research. The result of not investing in a strong, sustainable post-secondary education system will impact Canadians for decades to come. The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations challenges you to talk about how the federal government can financially support education. To learn more on how you can help please contact CASA. If the government can go above and beyond the current investments, we will collectively secure the future growth and prosperity of businesses, researchers, and most importantly Canada.

www.casa-acae.com

Public Servants

OFSI’s Dickson: The most powerful woman in Canadian banking J

struck major financial institutions in the ulie Dickson is the most powerful woman United States and Europe since 2008. Canain Canadian banking. She was apdian banks held four of the top 10 spots in pointed watchdog of Canada’s banks Bloomberg Markets magazine’s annual and other financial institutions in July ranking of the world’s strongest banks, 2007, for a seven-year term. Her job is released in May 2012. With Europe sinking to ensure that Canada’s banks remain back into recession and several of its banks solid. Ms. Dickson joined the Office of the seeing their credit ratings cut, 2013 may be Superintendent of Financial Institutions a year in which some of the challenges of in 1999 and quickly rose up its ranks. 2008 may arise again, and the 56-year-old The agency was created in 1987, in the Ms. Dickson, who holds a Maswake of two small bank failures and ters of Economics from Queen’s the collapse of several provinUniversity and a Bachelor of Arts cially-chartered trust compa(Honours Economics) from the nies and credit unions. University of New Brunswick, Canada has escaped the Superintendent of will be there to help oversee it serious bank capitalizaFinancial Institutions all in Canada. —Mark Bourrie tion problems that have

Julie Dickson


Doer instrumental in future of Canada-U.S. relations Gary Doer

Canadian Ambassador to the U.S

F

ormer NDP premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer had a great run as one of the country’s most popular provincial leaders. After a stint in opposition in which he was a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Doer, 64, was elected premier in 1999. In 2009, he announced he was leaving politics and soon afterwards Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered him the job of Canadian ambassador to Washington. Mr. Doer is popular in Washington and Ottawa. Mr. Doer may lean in U.S. President Barack Obama’s direction politically but he car-

ries Canada’s Conservative government’s political ball on trade, the environment and the Keystone pipeline. Mr. Doer has also been deeply involved in negotiations for a new North America security perimeter. He’s argued against “Buy American” procurement rules at the state and local level that Canada argues undermines provisions of NAFTA. Canada-U.S. relations will be put to the test, especially as Prime Minister Harper attempts to get access to the U.S. market for Canadian energy resources. Mr. Doer will play a key role in the coming year.—Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

51

Public Servants

Fonberg providing continuity during DND reorganization Robert Fonberg

Michael Ferguson

National Defence Deputy Minister

Auditor General of Canada

R

obert Fonberg provides continuity at the Department of National Defence for the rather rapid turnover of chiefs of the defence staff. Appointed to his position as DM on Oct. 1, 2007, Mr. Fonberg is responsible for managing the changes that are taking place at DND as it’s downsized, re-deployed for peacetime roles, and re-equipped. His long career in the public service in various senior roles will help him during this reorganization period. Mr. Fonberg is married toYaprak Baltacioglu, secretary of the Treasury Board Secretariat.—Mark Bourrie

Photograph courtesy of DND

DND DM Robert Fonberg is responsible for managing the changes taking place at DND as it’s downsized, re-deployed for peacetime roles and re-equipped.


AG Ferguson’s got a thick skin A

uditor General Michael Ferguson is still being bashed for his grade-school level command of French, which hasn’t improved much since his appointment, on Nov. 28, 2011, despite a rigorous daily regime of lessons. The auditor general needs a thick skin, which Mr. Ferguson has proven he has. He made headlines last year when he looked into the procurement system for 65 F-35 fighter planes and cast doubt on the government’s estimate of $16-billion, saying he expects the jets to cost about $10-billion more and chastising the government for not following due diligence. An external KPMG audit

also confirmed his findings. That report, released by the government in December 2012, estimates the F-35s will cost $45.8-billion over 42 years. Auditors general rarely are friendly with the government, and this one has already found his budget cut. He also didn’t flinch from challenging House lawyers who tried to prevent him from releasing emails between himelf and House staffers, requested through an NDP-filed ATIP, about his appearances at Parliamentary committees. Down to earth, and a straight shooter, Mr. Ferguson is sure to continue making waves and influencing the policy agenda in 2013.—Mark Bourrie

Les grands invités du CRDI : éclairants, inspirants, influents Le Centre de recherches pour le développement international, société d’État canadienne, invite de passionnants conférenciers à venir exposer leurs idées sur des sujets qui nous concernent tous.

Soyez de la partie Consultez le calendrier des conférences à venir à www.crdi.ca/conferences-automne. À vos agendas !

CRDI

Ricardo Lagos Ancien président du Chili

Rachel Nugent Économiste du développement

Vous avez manqué une conférence ? Écoutez-la sur youtube.com/user/IDRCCRDI.

crdi.ca


Carlos Pérez del Castillo Spécialiste en matière d’échanges commerciaux et d’agriculture

Rami Khouri Auteur et chroniqueur politique

Public Servants

Horgan working on cutting federal deficit, no stranger to tough files Michael Horgan Finance Deputy Minister

A

s deputy minister of Finance, Michael Horgan is tasked with getting the federal deficit under control, a job that has proven to be so difficult that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

has already moved the target back by a year. There is no doubt that with his financial expertise and long-time experience as a senior mandarin in the federal public service that he will perform well. He also has to help Mr. Flaherty and the government cope with the task of finding a replacement for Bank of Canada Governor

Mark Carney, who’s leaving in July to do the same job at the Bank of England. Mr. Horgan joined the public service in 1978 and has worked on several high-profile issues such as energy policy, the GST, the Quebec referendum, and the Kelowna Accord. He is no stranger to working on tough files.—Mark Bourrie


Johnston a dynamic GG Governor General David Johnston has a personal interest in Canada’s innovation agenda and will likely exert influence in this area.

David Johnston Governor General

D

avid Johnston became Canada’s 28th Governor General since Confederation in 2010 after a distinguished career as a law professor and university president. He headed McGill for 15 years before becoming president of the tech-savvy University of Waterloo in 1999. That university earned a reputation as one of the most innovative, dynamic schools in the country and, under Mr. Johnston, began topping lists of the country’s best comprehensive universities. He was the founding chair of the National Round Table on the Environment

and the Economy, chaired the federal government’s Information Highway Advisory Council, and served as the first non-American chair of the Board of Overseers at Harvard University. Before becoming GG, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed him to set the terms of the inquiry into allegations of corruption that were made by German arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. Mr. Johnston has been a dynamic Governor General. He was especially busy in 2012, when he was involved in celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and was, as commander-in-chief, active in the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. He has a personal interest in Canada’s innovation agenda, and will likely continue to exert influence in this area. —Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

53

Public Servants

Michael Martin: Former diplomat turned trusted PM adviser PCO Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Operations

M

ichael Martin made his public service career as a diplomat in Hong Kong, Islamabad, Beijing, and Tokyo. He is a low-profile person who rarely makes news and is never quoted in the media, but he found himself in the spotlight last year as

Photograph courtesy of Environment Canada

Michael Martin

Canada’s chief negotiator in climate change talks in Copenhagen at a time when Canada’s policy on carbon emissions were attracting criticism and scrutiny in Canada and abroad. Mr. Martin fought hard to defend the Conservative government’s position on the Kyoto Accord and its fallout. He also remained tough in the bargaining sessions. Now, in his third year in the PCO, his influence comes from his access to the Prime Minister and to senior Cabinet ministers.—Mark Bourrie

Canada’s first PBO earns respect, fear and enmity Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

Kevin Page Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer

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lthough Kevin Page’s term as Canada’s first Parliamentary budget officer ends in March 2013, he will “continue to be a critic of government and a royal pain in the ass to the Tories,” say political observers. “The Liberals and NDP are making him a folk hero.” After 27 years as a public servant at Finance Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat and the Privy Council Office, in addition to several line departments, Mr. Page was appointed as the PBO on March 25, 2008 for a term of five years. An economist by training, Mr. Page has taken on a public service role, fighting for transparency and “truth in budgeting,” a mandate that the Conserva-


tive government—which created the position under the Federal Accountability Act, and which appointed him— did not expect him to take on literally. Mr. Page has been locked in several fights with the federal government to try to pry out detailed financial information on everything from the cost of the war in Afghanistan, to how $5.2-billion of strategic review cuts over three years to the federal bureaucracy will affect service, to coming out first with more accurate figures for F-35 fighter jet procurement. He’s threatened to go to court to get the information he says he needs. NDP MP Pat Martin has said that Mr. Page is “one of the best friends the Canadian taxpayers ever had.” Mr. Page has said he wants to build a budget office that’s as good as the U.S. Congressional Budget Office it’s modeled after in Washington, D.C. He proved he was willing to ruffle some feathers to do it, earning him respect, fear and enmity.—Mark Bourrie

Paulson a strong, successful commissioner Bob Paulson

RCMP Commissioner

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ob Paulson became the RCMP commissioner in November 2011 and has since been dealing with a number of high-profile issues. Mr. Paulson, who joined the RCMP in 1986 after seven years in the Canadian Armed Forces, is concentrating on reducing the number of deskbound staff at RCMP headquarters and getting more police into the field. He also has to deal with sexual harassment and sex discrimination issues raised by former and current members of the RCMP who have filed official complaints and launched a class action lawsuit against the Force. The RCMP, which serves under contract as provincial police in British Columbia, is under pressure from activists in the province who want B.C. to develop its own police force. Mr. Paulson—who took over after Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried allowing a public servant to run the force instead of an officer—has so far been strong in his role and is considered one of the government’s more successful appointments.—Mark Bourrie

Behind the scenes, Pentney in charge of moving law-andorder agenda Bill Pentney Deputy Minister Department of Justice Canada

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rior to becoming the Department of Justice deputy minister in November 2012, Bill Pentney was the assistant secretary to Cabinet, priorities and planning at the Privy Council Office where he was responsible for organizing the government’s agenda. His job now is to implement the government’s extensive law-and-order legislation in the Criminal Code and work on new legislation, including a tightening of the forensic psychiatry review board system. He also faces the challenge of working with a department that has taken deep cuts and is ridden with staffing and morale issues. The former law professor who joined the public service in 1991 is “very bright and competent” and “will make a good DM,” say insiders. Mr. Pentney previously worked at the Canadian Human Rights Commission as general counsel and the Department of National Defence as the associate deputy minister.—Mark Bourrie

Strahl to act as an AG of sorts to CSIS Chuck Strahl

Chair of Security Intelligence Review Committee

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ormer Conservative Cabinet minister Chuck Strahl, 55, was appointed as the chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee last June right around the same time that the federal government abolished civilian oversight at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which makes Mr. Strahl’s job all the more important. The former Aboriginal Affairs, Transport and Agriculture minister in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government was first elected as a Reform MP in 1993 and re-elected five times. He spent more than 17 years in elected office and most recently started a consulting business focused on political, governmental and business strategies. Although he won’t replace civilian oversight, as the head of SIRC, Mr. Strahl will act as the auditor general of sorts to CSIS by reviewing its activities, investigating complaints by individuals and examining ministers’ reports related to national security—an issue that is front and centre on the Conservative government’s agenda. —Bea Vongdouangchanh Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

Photograph courtesy of the RCMP

Public Servants


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Lobbyists

Beatty speaks for 175,000 businesses ormer Progressive Conservative Cabinet minister Perrin Beatty has been a fixture in Ottawa for 40 years, and remains an influential player on the federal political scene not only because of his exhaustive political, media, bureaucracy and business connections across the country but because he is knowledgeable on several files impacting Canada’s future and is wellrespected on all sides of the political spectrum. Mr. Beatty, whose family made its fortune making farm equipment and machinery, is head of the umbrella group that represents small business. As president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, he speaks for 300 chambers of commerce and 175,000 businesses across Canada, which the government ignores at its peril.—Mark Bourrie

Perrin Beatty

president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Burney has PM’s respect Derek Burney

Norton Rose Canada senior strategic adviser

Derek Burney is one of the most well-connected government relations consultants in Ottawa.



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erek Burney is one of the most well-connected government relations consultants in Ottawa. He was chief of staff to prime minister Brian Mulroney from 1987 to 1989, and was directly involved in the negotiation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. After finishing that project, Mr. Burney served as Canada’s ambassador to the United States, staying in the position until the Progressive Conservatives lost power in 1993. He returned from Washington to be chairman and chief executive officer of Bell Canada International. He then spent five years as president and CEO of CAE Inc., a company engaged in commercial aviation training. In 2006, he led the Tory transition team when Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. The following year, he was appointed, along with former Liberal MP John Manley and broadcaster Pamela Wallin, to the Independent Panel on Canada’s Role in Afghanistan. After the panel delivered its report in 2008, he was appointed chair of the Selection Committee for the government’s “Canada Excellence Research Chairs” program. Mr. Burney, who wrote his autobiography Getting It Done: A Memoir in 2005, is also a frequent speaker at business functions and continues to work as a government relations expert at the international law firm Norton Rose. The 72-year-old Mr. Burney has Prime Minister Harper and his advisers’ respect, making him a useful resource for the Conservatives and a key member of the city’s lobbying community. He is currently working on key files the government has at the top of its agenda, such as innovation and international trade, and recently co-chaired an important study—with former Canadian Council of Chief Executives president Thomas D’Aquino, former International Trade deputy minister Len Edwards and Carleton University’s Fen Hampson—on those same issues called Securing Canada’s Global Economic Future: Canada’s Strategy for Emerging Markets.—Mark Bourrie


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Lobbyists

It’s all about pipelines for Enbridge’s Monaco Al Monaco

Enbridge president and CEO

l Monaco was appointed chief executive officer and president of Enbridge Inc. last year after a stellar career within the company. He took over from successful long-time president Pat Daniels at a time when Enbridge was dogged with a series of pipeline breaks that caused significant environmental damage and gave the company a public relations black eye. Before his appointment, Mr. Monaco served as president of gas

Photograph courtesy of Enbridge

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pipelines, green energy and international with responsibility for the growth and operations of Enbridge’s pipelines in North America

and overseas. Mr. Monaco has more than 30 years experience in the energy exploration, development and pipeline business. He joined Enbridge in 1995. Enbridge is at the centre of one of the most important resource development and export projects in the country: the Northern Gateway project to link Alberta oil fields to the Pacific port of Kitimat, B.C. The project faces major opposition from environmentalists, First Nations groups, and the provincial government of British Columbia, which does not support Northern Gateway in its present incarnation. Eventually, Enbridge may be able to get environmental approval and support from First Nations and the government of British Columbia for Northern Gateway. But that will only happen if Enbridge and the Harper government continue to agree to work together to push the projects through. Mr. Monaco will have a busy year. —Mark Bourrie

Jayson Myers

Photograph courtesy of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

President of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

Myers’s organization has huge stake in free trade agreements J

ayson Myers is president of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the country’s largest manufacturing group. He is also the chair of the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition, a coalition of more than 43 industry associations lobbying on behalf of Canada’s manufacturing sector. Mr. Myers is well-connected in government and media. He sits on special advisory councils to the minister for International Trade, the minister of Industry, and the Canadian Border Services Agency. He is co-chair of the Work & Learning Knowledge Centre of the Canadian Council on Learning. Mr. Myers’ organization has a huge stake in the negotiations for free trade agreements with the Euro-

pean Union, India, Japan, China, and the Asia-Pacific trading bloc. He is a well-known and widely-published economic commentator. Mr. Myers studied at Queen’s University and the University of British Columbia, then at the London School of Economics and Oxford University, and lectured in international studies at Warwick University. He is still a consultant on Canadian and international business affairs for Oxford Analytica, an international consulting group based at Oxford University. Expect to hear and see a lot of him later in the year when the government begins real debate on whatever trade deals it is able to reach in Asia and the European Union.—Mark Bourrie Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Lobbyists

Powers a man of many talents

Tim Powers

Mover and Shaker: Tim Powers pictured on Sparks Street in Ottawa.

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im Powers is one of the Ottawa lobbyists who is most likely to be asked by TV and radio chase producers to play the role of Tory political strategist in interviews and panels and remains an influential pundit in this way. Mr. Powers arrived in Ottawa from Newfoundland in 1991 to work as a staffer for then-Cabinet minister John Crosbie. Since then, he’s shown himself to be a man of many talents—campaigner, lobbyist, communications professor at the University of Ottawa, and rugby player. Mr. Powers, 44, is well-connected into the Prime Minister’s Office. How much confidence does the PMO have in his spinning ability? In many ways, it seems, much more than it does in the ability of backbench MPs and some ministers. Mr. Powers spins the Tory message on The Globe and Mail’s online opinion page, on weekend politics show TV panels, The Hill Times, and on several of the country’s bigcity talk-news radio stations. He’s a good talker.—Mark Bourrie


Summa Strategies vice-president

Prentice odds-on favourite to take over Tory Party ierre Trudeau had his John Turner, Jean Chrétien had his Paul Martin, and Jim Prentice, senior executive vice-president and vice-chair of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, may be the exiled leaderin-waiting for Stephen Harper’s job. Mr. Prentice, an Ontario-born lawyer, was educated at Dalhousie University in Halifax and practised in Calgary, Alta. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 2004 and re-elected twice in the riding of Calgary North Centre. In 2003, Mr. Prentice ran for leader of the Progressive Conservative Party on a platform to “unite the right,” but lost to now-Defence Minister Peter MacKay. From January 2006 until November 2010, he served terms as minister of Industry, Environment, and Indian Affairs. Mr. Prentice was the senior member for Alberta and the minister who stick-handled pipeline issues. He was also a member of Cabinet’s most powerful committees. In November 2010, Mr. Prentice resigned his seat in the Commons to join CIBC. Since his departure from politics, he’s been an outspoken proponent of economic, innovation and trade issues and was an early supporter of CNOOC’s takeover of Nexen. He will continue to play an influential role on the public policy scene. He also remains the odds-on favourite to take over the Conservative Party if, by some twist of fate, Mr. Harper decides to take an early walk in the snow.—Mark Bourrie


Jim Prentice

CIBC’s senior executive VP and vice-chair

Jim Prentice, pictured in November 2012 in Ottawa with former U.S. ambassador David Wilkins at the Canadian American Business Council’s 18th Annual Policy Forum in Ottawa.


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Media

Cornellier’s stamp of approval coveted by those seeking votes in Quebec Manon Cornellier Le Devoir columnist

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e Devoir has never had a high circulation, but it is read by Quebec’s most influential people, and its Ottawa columnist has always been one of the most important journalists in the province. Manon Cornellier has gained the respect of politicians on both sides of the House for her insight and intelligence, and her stamp of approval is coveted by those who seek to win votes in Canada’s second most-populous province. Ms. Cornellier holds a communications degree from the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) and has done graduate work at the University of Ottawa. She was working for La Presse canadienne in 1993 when the Bloc Québécois emerged from that year’s election as official opposition. As one of the sharpest Ottawa-based Quebec reporters, Ms. Cornellier was in a good position to chronicle the party in a book called The Bloc, which

was well-received in both its English and French editions. Ms. Cornellier freelanced for other publications and electronic media, including La Presse, TVA-CHOT, TVOntario, TFO and Québecscience. In 2007, her peers gave her the Prix Judith-Jasmin, Quebec’s most prestigious journalism award, for an article on the problems faced by women in politics. In “Femmes en retrait,” she looked at the minor role played by the six women appointed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Cabinet in 2006.—Mark Bourrie

Le Devoir columnist Manon Cornellier writes for an influential Quebec readership. Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

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Media

CTV’s top journalist,Fife has track record for breaking stories Bob Fife

CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief


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Here comes Fife: Bob Fife

hapleau, Ont.-born Bob Fife has made a successful transition from newspapers to television. Mr. Fife, a former forest fire fighter, joined CTV in 2005. He runs the network’s Ottawa bureau and is executive producer of CTV’s Power Play with Don Martin and the weekend staple, CTV’s Question Period, which draws Hill journalists and political actors to its weekly interview sessions. Mr. Fife cut his teeth at the Toronto Sun and at The Canadian Press, where he made his reputation as an investigative reporter. He later headed the Hill bureau of the National Post and Canwest before jumping the fence to TV. As the top journalist at CTV in Ottawa, Mr. Fife decides who appears on its shows and how the Hill is covered for the CTV National News. Mr. Fife is well-connected on Parliament Hill and has a track record for breaking stories based on leaks from government MPs, staffers, and bureaucrats. That’s Fifed.—Mark Bourrie

David Ljunggren Reuters Reporter

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avid Ljunggren has been the national political correspondent in Canada for Reuters since 1999. His beats include politics, defence, environment and other major political and financial issues. Recently, he has also written about national security. From 1995 to 1999, Mr. Ljunggren worked in London, mainly covering foreign affairs. Beginning in 1989, he spent six years stationed in Moscow where he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union and the political and economic fallout


triggered by that revolution. Reuters, owned by the Canadian-based Thomson family, is one of the most prestigious and authoritative news agencies in the world, giving Mr. Ljunggren an audience of readers of the world’s great financial newspapers that subscribe to the service. That is a door-opener for Mr. Ljunggren. In addition, Mr. Ljunggren “has a good reputation for fairness and accurate reporting among all parties, and is considered a top-notch press gallery reporter on economic files in particular,” said one source. In his spare time, he’s a respected reviewer on the Amazon family of websites.—Mark Bourrie


Ljunggren has a reputation for fairness

Reuters Parliament Hill reporter David Ljunggren is considered a straight shooter.

Media

McGregor a leading expert in computerassisted reporting O

ttawa-native Glen McGregor is probably the last reporter who you’d find in a scrum and almost never covers the story du jour. Instead, he breaks them. He has carved out a name for himself as an expert investigative reporter. He’s mastered the use of databases and governOttawa Citizen Reporter Postmedia National ment disclosure information Affairs Columnist to break a string of font-page stories. Mr. McGregor has been recognized by his peers as Canada’s leading expert in computer-assisted reporting—to the point that he sometimes even writes his own software codes. His abilities with a computer and a pile of disclosure files makes him, as his managing editor wrote in a recent Maclean’s piece, “one of the most fearsome ow in his second year as a Postmedia News national affairs columnist, journalistic weapons in the Stephen Maher is perhaps better known as an investigative reporter. He country.” arrived on the Hill eight years ago as chief of the one-man Ottawa bureau Mr. McGregor and Postof the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. After several years of breaking important media columnist Stephen Atlantic Canada political stories, Mr. Maher teamed up with his Hot Room Maher began working tocolleague Glen McGregor to write a series of investigative pieces dealing gether on big investigative with the way the Conservatives doled out infrastructure funding. pieces when Mr. Maher was He also broke a story about a Tory staffer losing a digital recorder that still Parliamentary reporter contained unflattering chatter by her boss, then-Natural Resources minisfor the Halifax Chronicleter Lisa Raitt. In 2012, Mr. Maher and Mr. McGregor seized on an under-reHerald. In 2012, they broke ported story from the 2011 election that Liberal and NDP voters in Guelph, the “robocalls” story, giving Ont., had received misleading phone calls directing them to non-existent national prominence to what polling places. They showed that there was a pattern of alleged vote suphad seemed to be some alpression in several ridings. The investigation resulted in one of the most leged voter suppression in important political scandals of recent years, spawning investigations by Guelph, Ont., during the 2011 Elections Canada and at least one court case. federal election. When not chasing down the phantom robocaller “Pierre Poutine,” the Mr. McGregor is also a popular Mr. Maher is often chatting up sources and colleagues from his wide fixture on Twitter and was one network of friends across political lines and through the city.—Mark Bourrie of the first journalists to use it to cover a trial when, in 2009, Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times he sent frequent tweets from the trial of then-Ottawa mayor Larry O’Brien. He convinced the judge in the case that tweet journalism is a public service that would not disrupt the trial. —Mark Bourrie

Glen McGregor

Stephen Maher

Postmedia national affairs columnist better known as investigative reporter N

January 2013, Power & Inf luence—

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Barber brings Atleo, Spence, Idle No More have top people Ottawa’s attention into one room Tim Barber

Canada 2020 co-founder

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AFN Chief Shawn Atleo, Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, and Idle No More movement are forcing Ottawa to listen.

Shawn Atleo AFN National Chief

I Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

im Barber has been a fixture in political Ottawa for decades. With 20 years of experience as a political staffer, bureaucrat, government relations expert and policy guru, it was inevitable that he would add entrepreneur to that list, helping to create public and government relations firm Bluesky Strategy Group and influential think tank Canada 2020. Back in the day, he co-founded the “Cathay Club”dinners and annual “Bluesky” sessions at Meech Lake where he would bring Ottawa’s top people together to deliberate on important public policy issues. Now he’s doing it formally with Canada 2020, but on a much larger scale, attracting elite international speakers and hundreds of people to must-attend, sold-out events. Canada 2020 has access to people that other think tanks don’t have, and one source said that bringing in U.S. economist Lawrence Summers to Ottawa last fall was a “major coup.” —Bea Vongdouangchanh

t began in November, 2012, with four women in Saskatchewan who were concerned the government’s second budget implementation bill, C-45, would erode indigenous rights. But the Idle No More grassroots aboriginal rights movement has since captured national attention through protests across the country and through Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s highly-publicized fasting. PM Stephen Harper has now been forced to listen. AFN National

Chief Shawn Atleo, meanwhile, is advocating for the treaty rights of more than 630 First Nations communities representing more than 700,000 First Nations peoples. The First Nations want treaties modernized, implemented and enforced; a new financial relationship with the Crown; new resource development agreements and new environmental agreements; over lands. Mr. Atleo, who is being criticized by chiefs and pushed by the Idle No More movement, is up for one of the toughest challenges in his leadership.“We are absolute in our convictions,” Mr. Atleo said on Jan. 10.

Carter likely next Grit rainmaker Political Organizer

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tephen Carter is vice-president and national director of campaign strategy for Hill and Knowlton Strategies but “has his hands all over different bits of political activities.” Mr. Carter, who ran an events planning business for 13 years, cut his teeth in politics as media strategist for Joe Clark from 2001 to 2003. He’s now running Martha Hall Findlay’s campaign to lead the federal Liberal Party. Mr. Carter describes himself as a “post-partisan” campaign-


er. He headed Naheed Nenshi’s successful 2010 campaign for mayor of Calgary and was one of the top people behind Alberta premier Allison Redford’s campaign for PC leader. In 2010, she brought him into the provincial election campaign when she was floundering in the polls, and further cemented his reputation as one of the country’s up-and-coming strategists by turning the campaign around. After the election, he served briefly as Ms. Redford’s chief of staff before joining Hill and Knowlton.

Mr. Carter is known for his social media smarts. But he faces a more difficult row to hoe in the federal Liberal campaign and up against Liberal MP Justin Trudeau whose team went into the contest with a solid web and social media presence. One source said that Mr. Carter is “likely becoming the backroom boy of choice for a lot of Liberal campaigns. He will be what John Laschinger was to the Tories once, maybe the next rainmaker to replace Keith Davey.” —Mark Bourrie Photograph courtesy Hill & Knowlton

Stephen Carter

Photographs by Steve Gerecke, The Hill Times

Other Players

Energy & Environment

Oil and influence: how power shapes policy Industry giants like Enbridge and Syncrude employ lobbying consultants, industry associations, and their own in-house emissaries to meet regularly with politicians and senior bureaucrats to influence federal policy. Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

BY CHRIS PLECASH anada’s oil and gas sector creates jobs across the country, and Ottawa is no exception. Industry giants like Enbridge and Syncrude employ lobbying consultants, industry associations, and their own in-house emissaries to meet regularly with politicians and senior bureaucrats in an effort to influence federal policy. According to a recent study by the Polaris Institute, an Ottawa-based public interest think thank, representatives of the oil and gas sector registered 2,733 contacts with public officials and MPs between July 2008 and November 2012. “They have the money, they have the incentive, and based on the industry friendly policy shifts over the past few years these massive lobbying efforts are paying off,” the report concludes. The important study confirms what has been on public display within Ottawa since the Conservatives secured their majority in 2011: the oil and gas industry’s privileged access to federal policymaking.

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Influence on the record One need look no further than the testimony given by two of the industry’s biggest lobbies during the statutory review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in the lead up to the 2012 federal budget. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association didn’t need to register with the lobbying commissioner or meet behind closed doors with MPs to advocate for “regulatory streamlining,” “predictable timelines,” and “one project, one review”—all measures that found their way into the 2012 budget. “Typically, a federal pipeline will trigger the need for assessment decisions under CEAA, but also in Fisheries, Transport, NEB, Migratory Birds, and [the Species at Risk Act]. There are various mechanisms at the policy and administrative level to try to avoid any avoidable duplication

in the preparation of the assessment. Frankly, attempts to coordinate have been very ineffective,” CEPA president and former National Energy Board policy adviser Brenda Kenny told the House Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development in October 2011. “We’re in a global investment climate where capital is mobile and the competitive environment changes rapidly. If a project is held up for a long time in the regulatory process, we often run the risk ... of the market changing dramatically during the course of the regulatory process,” CAPP president Dave Collyer told the committee in November of 2011. “Predictability on the scope and the timeline of the regulatory process is critical for our industry, from a competitive standpoint.” MPs weren’t the only ones to be educated on the virtues of regulatory reform by messengers of the oil industry in the months prior to Bill C-38, the budget implementation bill. The public also heard about the importance of clearing the way for major energy projects in advance of the 2012 budget. Within months of the Conservatives’ majority win, former PM Brian Mulroney chief of staff Derek Burney told an audience at a Canada 2020 event on Canada’s energy future that governments needed to streamline decision making and stop funding civil society groups that often oppose major energy projects. “We have too much government, too much regulation, too much oversight, and we don’t have enough vision and enough streamlined approaches to give us a rational debate and a rational policy framework to make the kind of investments we need to make,” Mr. Burney told the audience. “Every time they try to develop new facilities in Toronto, you’ve got a bunch of NGOs—who are sponsored and financed by government—blocking it. Well you know, there Continued on Page 64 Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Energy & Environment

Oil and influence: power shapes policy Continued from Page 63 are ways of dealing with that.You stop funding people who are opposed to progress that cities need,” he went on to say. Mr. Burney, who led Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s transition team following the Conservatives’ first minority victory in 2006, has been a member of the board of directors for Keystone XL pipeline proponent TransCanada since 2005.

Ask and ye shall receive: C-38 and C-45 Industry beat the drum of regulatory reform throughout 2011, and in 2012 the federal government delivered with omnibus budget implementation bills C-38 and C-45. Taken together, the two bills: replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act with new legislation authorizing the federal Environment Minister to decide whether a project is federally assessed; imposed a 365-day time limit on standard environmental assessments and a 24-month time limit on joint review panels; restricted public participation in environmental reviews to “directly affected” parties; gave Cabinet the authority to overrule National Energy Board decisions on pipeline projects through order in council; gave Cabinet the authority to create new pipeline regulations through order in council; limited protection under the Fisheries Act to “commercial, recreation, and aboriginal fisheries”; gave Cabinet the authority to exempt fisheries

from protections contained in the Fisheries Act through order in council; repealed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act; eliminated the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy; repealed the requirement for companies to renew permits granted under the Species at Risk Act every three to five years; renamed the Navigable Waters Protection Act and reduced its scope from all navigable waters to 97 lakes, 62 rivers, and three oceans. The 2012 budget also empowered the Canada Revenue Agency and the Minister of National Revenue to scrutinize politically-engaged charities more closely. Bill C-38 gave the agency the ability to revoke the charity status for groups that spend more than 10 per cent of their funding on political activities or fail to meet new requirements for disclosing foreign donations. The opposition parties accused the government of “gutting” environmental law in Canada; the government called it “responsible resource development.” The impact of the changes on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s workload was stark. In 2010, more than 2,900 projects were under federal review. By the end of 2012, the agency was in the process of assessing 86 projects. “[W]e’re talking here about thousands of projects that don’t need regulatory review—the type of things that take up time, but don’t pose an environmental risk. We’re talking about blueberry washing factories, or trying to put up an icerink in a national park. We don’t need the full weight of the

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wirereport.ca 64 —Power & Inf luence 2013

Energy & Environment federal government on these poor people,”Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver told The Hill Times in August.“What we want to focus on are the big projects, the huge projects that can have an impact on the environment and would have an economic impact nationally or regionally for the country.”

The pushback The impact of the industry friendly 2012 budget could be felt for years to come. Opposition parties’ efforts to break up bills C-38 and C-45 and stall passage of the legislation were mere formalities compared to the legal challenges that are likely to emerge as new projects are proposed in the coming years. Alan Ross, a Calgary-based lawyer and partner with national law firm Borden Ladner Gervais, said that groups opposing projects like Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline are becoming “emboldened” to challenge projects through legal and regulatory means, in part because the new legislation “lends itself” to litigation. “They seem to be galvanized by major projects. ... It is a trend,” Mr. Ross acknowledged.“It will affect the [proponent’s] analysis of risk, the analysis of placement of capital in potential projects, and ultimately defer, or delay, or deny entirely potential projects from happening.” Mr. Ross, who has provided legal counsel to TransCanada and represented Kinder Morgan at the National Energy Board, noted that groups will have grounds to challenge the environmental assessment process on the basis that the timelines on review undermine public consultation, while the “potential subjectivity” of Cabinet’s power to determine which projects are assessed could provide further grounds for legal challenges. These aspects of the new environmental assessment process may also violate the Crown’s constitutional duty to consult with First Nations. “There are constitutional rights to consultation for First Nations groups, which are absolute rights, and if that level of consultation isn’t sufficiently done, then that is very much an opportunity for constitutional challenge against the legislation,” Mr. Ross observed. First Nations peoples’ frustration with the overhaul of environmental oversight in Canada was clear by the end of 2012, when a delegation of chiefs attempted to force their way into the House of Commons after an exchange with Mr. Oliver in the halls of Parliament on Dec. 4. Organizers of the Idle No More protest movement have criticized the changes to environmental protection in bills C-38 and C-45 for violating the treaty relationship between the Crown and First Nations.

A national energy strategy: an adult conversation, or ‘pipeline by stealth’? After years of collaborating on policy development, the federal government and the oil and gas industry may have gotten more than they bargained for with the 2012 budget. One economist with an Ottawa-based think thank described the situation as “a poison chalice” for industry and the feds. The regulatory burden may have been lifted, but a hornet’s nest of public opposition was kicked in the process. The new adversarial reality between industry and concerned citizens isn’t lost on Alberta Premier Alison Redford, whose province depends on new pipeline infrastructure to continue to develop its oil sands. Despite Ottawa’s regulatory overhaul, Northern Gateway appears doomed and Keystone XL continues to face regulatory hurdles and legal challenges in the U.S.

In an effort to kick-start “the adult conversation” that many have called for on energy in Canada, Premier Redford has pushed for a pan-Canadian energy strategy that would see the provinces and territories work together to develop the country’s energy portfolio. “I know that when people hear Alberta talking about this and me talking about this, that their first thought is, ‘Well, of course this is in the interests of Alberta,’” Ms. Redford acknowledged in a year end interview with The Hill Times. “There’s no doubt that it is, but it’s not exclusively in the interests of Alberta.” Every provincial and territorial premier, with the exception B.C. Premier Christy Clark, has signed on to the plan, which aims to promote cross-jurisdictional collaboration on energy efficiency and conservation, clean-tech deployment, clean energy development, modernizing energy infrastructure, regulatory streamlining, energy sector skills training, and international energy negotiations. Playing to the strong opposition to Northern Gateway in her province, Ms. Clark declined to sign on to the strategy on the grounds that it could be used OIL AND INFLUENCE to move the project # of meetings with ahead “by stealth.” public officer holders The strategy albetween July 2008 and ready has one convert Organization November 2012 in Quebec Premier Canadian Association Pauline Marois, who 536 joined Ms. Redford at of Petroleum Producers the end of November TransCanada Corporation 279 to announce that the Canadian Gas Association (CGA) 270 two provinces would Imperial Oil Ltd. 205 collaborate on sharing Canadian Energy technical information Pipeline Association (CEPA) 198 related to the developSuncor Energy Inc. 196 ment of eastbound Canadian Fuels Association pipelines that would deliver Alberta crude (formerly the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute) 167 to refineries in Mon143 treal and Saint John. Enbridge Inc. Prior to the meet- Shell Canada Ltd. 118 ing, Ms. Marois’ Compiled by The Polaris Institute. environment minister Report: Big Oil’s Oily Grasp had said that Quebec would have final say over any pipeline projects through the province, regardless of National Energy Board approval. “Being able to do that work and share technical information is going to allow us to put in place a very different approach to how to build infrastructure that will grow economies right across the country, and that’s important,” said Ms. Redford. Whether efforts to develop a national consensus on Canada’s energy and environmental future translate into social licence remains to be seen. When asked about the federal government’s decision to approve the China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s $15.2-billion takeover of Calgarybased oil sands developer Nexen, the premier was clear that she wants to see the region’s output continue to grow. The Government of Alberta estimates that between $190- and $250-billion in investment is needed to develop the oil sands over the next 15 years. “I want to see continued foreign investment in the oil patch. I want to see it always assessed with whether or not it’s in the best interests of Canada,” Ms. Redford said. “$15-billion is important for us. It allows the economy to grow, and we do think it’s in Canada’s best interests.” Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Politicians & Art BY LAURA RYCKEWAERT 10-foot long polar bear fur— head and paws included—has been hanging in Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq’s office for the past three years, since its owner, one of Ms. Aglukkaq’s friends, moved into an apartment and didn’t have space for the giant fur. “I said, ‘I have a huge wall in my office, why don’t you just have it on my wall for a while until you find another place that it actually fits in,’ ” Ms. Aglukkaq says. Ms. Aglukkaq, 45, who was first elected in 2008, says she helps Northerners advertise their bear skins. “It’s revenue for the local hunters, and it’s still very much a way of life for us in the North, to hunt animals in our environment,” she tells Power & Influence from her Confederation Building office in room 458. But this particular fur is something of a family memento. Despite the bear’s size, Ms. Aglukkaq says, it was her then 11-year-old nephew who shot and killed the bear back in 2009 during a hunting trip in the area near the McClintock Channel in Nunavut. “The tradition is the father teaches their sons how to hunt, and this was one of the trips he made to teach his son how to polar bear hunt, and that was his first kill,” says Ms. Aglukkaq. “It’s not just a kill for the bear skin, it’s actually, we eat the meat and there’s a quota system in place and every year around December, January that’s when the polar bear hunt starts. “When people walk in they’re like ‘Whoa.’ I wouldn’t want to be facing it,” says Ms. Aglukkaq with a laugh. “It’s certainly a topic of conversation.”

Leona Aglukkaq’s polar bear skin

Photograph by Laura Ryckewaert, The Hill Times

Wow, that’s quite the bear rug: Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq stands in her Confederation Building office with the polar bear skin hanging on her wall. Her then 11-year-old nephew shot the bear near the McClintock Channel, Nunavut, in 2009.

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale and his postcard print by the celebrated Saskatchewan artist Wilf Pereault of a sleepy Saskatchewan neighbourhood blanketed by heavy snow.


Goodale’s favourite print by Wilf Pereault

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ach year, MPs send out thousands of holiday greeting cards across the country, but for years now deputy Liberal leader Ralph Goodale, who represents Wascana, Sask., 63, has used the annual card as a chance to promote local Saskatchewan artists, and the postcardsized copies of the pictures used over the years are now framed and hanging on his office wall in room 452-N Centre Block. “I’m really proud of the artistic talent in Regina and in Saskatch-


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ewan,” says Mr. Goodale, first elected in 1974 and re-elected again in 1993. “It’s a way to actually pay tribute to Saskatchewan artists.” Mr. Goodale says he owns some of the actual paintings, which are hanging in his home in Regina, Sask. He’s previously used pictures by Saskatchewan artists David Thauberger, Joe Fafard, Allen Sapp, and Gordon Lewis as his Christmas card. But Mr. Goodale’s favourite is a piece by the celebrated Saskatchewan artist Wilf Pereault that depicts a sleepy Saskatchewan neighbourhood blanketed by heavy snow. —Laura Ryckewaert

Photograph courtesy of Janis Johnston

Politicians & Ar t

Conservative Senator Janis Johnson and her painting, Caroline Dukes’ Landscape #39 in her East Block office.

Senator Johnson’s Landscape #39

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he first piece that anyone who steps into Conservative Senator Janis Johnson’s office in room 335 East Block notices is Caroline Dukes’ Landscape #39 or Apple Pickers of Sodom Series, done with acrylic and graphite on a canvas that takes up most of the long wall behind her desk. It features a nude woman reclined and eating a bright red apple. Ms. Dukes, who passed away in 2003 at 74, was born in Hungary but moved to Canada in 1958, eventually settling in Manitoba.

While she enjoys that piece, Sen. Johnson’s favourite is an unassuming woodcut by Newfoundlandbased Mary Pratt. “To me she is the best female artist in the country. Her use of light is unbelievable,” says Sen. Johnson. The work, called Pear and Pomegranate depicts the two fruits in a glass bowl. Sen. Johnson counts Ms. Pratt among her closest friends from when she lived in Newfoundland in the 1970s with her husband, then-premier Frank

Moores. She recalls that at the time Ms. Pratt was raising four children while trying to continue her work. A love of the arts is in her family’s genes, says Sen. Johnson, who has more than a dozen pieces by Canadian and international artists in her office. Her grandfather, a doctor by profession, did pen and ink drawings as well as coal and charcoal sketches. Her family’s maternal relatives in Iceland were also artists, says Sen. Johnson, 66. She has six paintings in her office from the Art Bank, which rents out works by Canadian artists to Parliamentarians. “I cut back on paper so I can afford a bit more art on my walls,” she says. Currently on loan are works by Canadian artists Deborah Koenker, Alicia Popoff, Chanh Trung Truong and Rick Gorenko. She also has a series of illustrations from children’s books that her sister, Gillian Johnson Shakespeare, created. “If we don’t surround ourselves with art and beautiful things to look at, what are you going to do with life? It would be so despairing,” she says.—Jessica Bruno

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Politicians & Ar t May finds inspiration in limited edition print of Green Party founder fter Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.), 58, was elected to the House for the first time in 2011, she came to Ottawa with a limited edition print of Petra Kelly, a founder of the German Green Party who was shot dead in 1992. “I think it’s important that the first Green Party Member of Parliament in Canada has the image of one of the founders of our movement globally,” says Ms. May.“This was taken from a newspaper image, and the background is from newspapers’ [related headlines]… it’s a limited edition print and it’s really meaningful to me.” Ms. May says she got the print as a gift from the artist, Brian Roche, and it now hangs in her office in room 518 in the Confederation Building. Because of Germany’s proportional representation electoral system, the German Green Party “took off fast,” making them leaders in the movement, she says. From 1990 to 1992, Ms. May worked with Ms. Kelly when they were both on the board of the World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet, held in Miami in 1991.

Obhrai says painting ‘captures essence’ of Africa

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s the Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the past eight years, Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Alta.), 62, has had ample opportunity to

Tory MP Deepak Obhrai and his favourite piece, a painting done on a burlap sack from Burundi, hangs in his office. travel and see the world as part of his Parliamentary duties. As a result, he’s brought back many souvenirs.



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Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and her limited edition print of Petra Kelly, a founder of the German Green Party who was shot dead in 1992.

“[Ms. Kelly] was really an inspirational leader of the German Green Party,”says Ms. May.“She and I walk on the same path in terms of

Mr. Obhrai, who was first elected as a Reform MP in 1997 and who was born in Tanzania, has a gold-embellished piece from India, a picture from Turkey, a picture from Pakistan, a wool embroidered picture from Equador, and a painting of Mesai warriors from Kenya, all of which hang in his Centre Block office in room 426N. But his favourite piece is a painting done on a burlap sack from Burundi. Mr. Obhrai was there in 2006 to meet with child soldiers who were being rehabilitated and reintegrated back into society with help from Canada, along with other states, when he bought the painting from the artist, Jack (the painting is only signed with the artist’s first name), a local man selling artwork on the street. The painting is of a small village, a few huts surrounding a small body of water visited by a few villagers, and is tinted with pinks and oranges. Mr. Obhrai, who immigrated to Canada in 1977, said it is his favourite piece because it “captures the essence” of the continent he grew up in. “This is authentic African, the authentic efforts, the material and the picture itself, it really captures the heart of African art,” said Mr. Obhrai.—Laura Ryckewaert

pursuing non-violence, ecological sustainability, justice and feminism, so I think of us as having a lot in common.”—Laura Ryckewaert

Kinsella’s oil painting of St. John’s harbour

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t official dinners in his Parliamentary chambers, Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella, 73, often found himself gazing across the table, above the heads of his distinguished guests, at an oil painting of St. John’s harbour filled with ice and ships. Eventually, he realized he was gazing at it fondly. “It’s grown on me. It may not necessarily be the greatest piece Photograph by Jessica Bruno, The Hill Times of art in the The oil painting of St. John’s harbour country, but filled with ice and ships, by Thomas it’s the one I like,” says Sen. Harold Beament. Kinsella. The piece is one of a series of 10 works hanging in the Senate Speaker’s chambers in 266N Centre Block by Ottawa-born naval lieutenant-commander and trained artist Thomas Harold Beament (1898-1984), who served in both world wars. The pieces feature naval scenes from the First World War and Second World War. They have been on loan from the Canadian War Museum since 2010.—Jessica Bruno

Photograph by Jessica Bruno, The Hill Times

Politicians & Ar t

Stoffer’s buttons, hats, pins collection a work of art

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n an office with 4,700 hats, more than 3,500 pins and more than 3,000 badges hanging from every square inch of wall and ceiling surrounded by a myriad of sports jerseys, a dart board and a pool table, it’s hard to miss the stunning acrylic painting tucked behind a door in NDP MP Peter Stoffer’s room 242 ConfedTip of the hat: NDP MP Peter Stoffer, in his Confederation Building office, eration Building office. with some of the ‘stuff’ he has picked up over the years. It’s by his wife, Andrea Pottyondy, an accomplished painter. It’s a somewhat abstract landscape painting of the view on the couple’s property in Whitehead, N.S., about halfway between Halifax and Sydney on the province’s East Coast. Ms. Pottyondy grew up in Quebec, has lived in the Yukon and now resides in Nova Scotia. She specializes in colourful landscapes and florals. She has a number of shows this year in Nova Scotia, and her art is also on display in Ottawa and Montreal, says Mr. Stoffer, 57. As for those hats, pins and badges, Mr. Stoffer says he started collecting them when he first became an MP in 1997, and when he finally leaves politics“almost 98 per cent of it”will go to various charities in Nova Scotia. “You pick up stuff over the years, people give you stuff, so you’ve got to hang it somewhere,”he says. —Jessica Bruno Photograph by Laura Ryckewaert, The Hill Times

Liberal Senator David Smith has walls full of framed photos and art, but this is one of his favourites. That’s him in the House in 1981 with Trudeau.

Sen. Smith’s Centre Block office walls tell his political life story

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ooking like a gentleman’s club with a rich red carpet, wing-backed chairs and walls covered in framed photographs and sketches from floor to ceiling, 71-yearold Ontario Liberal Senator David Smith’s office in 176-F Centre Block is a testament to both his work as a politician for more than 30 years and to his love of political history. There are prints of famous British politicians including an original print of former PM Benjamin Disraeli and a portrait of former PM Henry Campbell Bannerman who Sen. Smith notes is the only prime minister to die in the 10 Downing St. building and to whom he is related; there’s a water colour print of King George V’s coronation The Toronto Star published in 1911; and there are photographs of Sen. Smith with famous leaders such as former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and former Cuban president Fidel Castro Sen. Smith’s collection also, of course, includes a photo of his wife, Heather, who is the first female chief justice on the Ontario Superior Court. But his favourite picture of the bunch is a shot taken of him when he was an MP in the House and when former PM Pierre Trudeau voted to pass the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on Dec. 2, 1981. Published as the front page photo in the Dec. 3, 1981 edition of The Globe and Mail, Sen. Smith can be seen behind Trudeau and behind then-Justice minister Jean Chrétien.“That’s me shouting ‘Bravo’ when Trudeau voted,”says Sen. Smith.“It was quite a moment in history.”—Laura Ryckewaert

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Places

Looking extremely stylish, Earnscliffe Strategy Group’s Yaroslav Baran, Hoffman Laroche’s Elizabeth Peace, and Macdonald Dettwiler Associates’ Philip Murphy relax in the Château’s lobby after last year’s Politics and the Pen soirée. Photograph by Steve Gerecke, The Hill Times

Château Laurier Hotel: Parliament’s third chamber The Château has been Ottawa’s extra-Parliamentary hub, welcoming some of the great political figures of our time and serving as the stage for momentous political events over its storied 100-year history. BY CHRISTOPHER GULY onsidered Parliament’s “third chamber,” or in the words of historian Peter C. Newman, “an annex to the East Block,” the Fairmont Château Laurier has been Ottawa’s extra-Parliamentary hub, welcoming some of the great political figures of our time and serving as the stage for momentous political events over its storied 100year history. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the current monarch’s parents, attended a state dinner at the hotel during their royal tour of Canada

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in 1939. Two years later, Sir Winston Churchill stayed at the Château during the Second World War when he addressed Parliament on Dec. 30, 1941 and was later photographed by the legendary Yousuf Karsh (who was later a long-time resident of the hotel) in a famous portrait that now hangs in the Château’s Reading Lounge. More recently, former South African president Nelson Mandela, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, presidents and royalty have affixed

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their signatures to the Château Laurier’s VIP guest book. But it’s not just who visited the hotel named after Canada’s seventh prime minister that gave it a strong historical presence; what happened there was equally as important. In 1946, former U.S. president Herbert Hoover was at the Château to deliver his final report on a global post-Second World War food-relief mission he headed at then-U.S. president Harry Truman’s request. At the event, Mr. Hoover ate a “butterless, breadless, sugarless, creamless, potatoless, meatless

Places dinner” consisting of “cold salmon, vegetables [and] fruit,” according to a Time magazine account. Two years earlier, 900 Liberal supporters of William Lyon Mackenzie King gathered at the Château to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his election as party leader—a 69-year-old man, who at the time, had also been head of a government longer than any living leader. According to a July 3 Time magazine article, Grits paid $2 each to eat gumbo Creole and tenderloin steak, and they raised a toast to King, using water, since Canada’s 10th Prime Minister “felt that liquor was out of place.” Two decades later, John Diefenbaker didn’t enjoy as warm a welcome from his fellow party members at the hotel. In 1966, the Chief entered a showdown with Dalton Camp, president of the Progressive Party of Canada, which under Mr. Diefenbaker’s leadership won three consecutive elections—an impressive feat considering Conservatives had not previously won a federal election since R.B. Bennett’s 1930 victory. However after Mr. Diefenbaker, as leader of the Official Opposition, lost his second election to Lester Pearson’s Liberals in 1965, Mr. Camp wanted the long-time MP for Prince Albert, Sask., out and—as Mr. Newman described in an Ottawa Citizen piece last year marking the Château Laurier’s centennial, the 1966 PC party leadership review wasn’t pretty. “For the first time in his political career, the master orator from Prince Albert had lost his audience,” wrote Mr. Newman, who witnessed the event in the hotel ballroom—as “cold as a morgue,” where Mr. Camp had a “jeering section” and the “sounds of clinking cocktail glasses drifted in from the hotel corridors.” That high drama played out in the mid-1960s was contrasted by the “cosy shelter” the hotel provided to Canada’s leading industrialists during the Château’s “golden era” between 1939 and 1945, according to Mr. Newman. They were “dollara-year-men,” recruited as volunteers by C.D. Howe, King’s “Minister of Everything, who set in motion the power structures that helped win the war and dominated Canada’s postwar prosperity.” Decades later, Canada’s premiers—save Quebec’s René Lévesque, who stayed on the Quebec side—

huddled in Suite 418 of the Château on Nov. 4, 1981 to hammer out an agreement to patriate the Constitution.“There was no drinking from the mini-bar,” Roy Romanow, former Saskatchewan premier and attorneygeneral at the time, told The Ottawa Citizen’s Maria Cook in a feature on the hotel published last May. As she pointed out, the Château has seen scandal. Diefenbaker Cabinet minister George Hees reportedly had his infamous fling with

and construction of the Château but never got to attend its opening, originally scheduled for April 26, 1912. He was among the 1,502 people who perished when the RMS Titanic sank on April 15 that year after hitting an iceberg. Laurier attended a more sombre opening ceremony on June 12, 1912, and became the first person to sign the Château’s guest register. From its first day, the Château Laurier had already made history by the death of the man whose


The grand dame herself, in all her glory: The Château Laurier Hotel, on Rideau Street in Ottawa, has been a venue for many major federal political events over the last century. alleged Soviet spy Gerda Munsinger at the hotel. And, it’s been a refuge from tragedy. When the Parliament Buildings caught fire in 1916, the government held a midnight Cabinet meeting in then justice minister Charles Doherty’s suite at the Château Laurier and set up temporary office quarters there. As historian and author Charlotte Gray pointed out in another Citizen story on the hotel, Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s “nose was out of joint” when the nose on a marble bust of him was chipped after a workman dropped it while carrying it into the hotel. (The sculpture was commissioned under the watch of Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada president Charles Melville Hays, who also oversaw the design

dream was to give Ottawa a landmark hotel, and continued to bridge the past with the present, and possibly the future. Nearly 33 years ago, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada’s 15th Prime Minister, stood on the podium in the same ballroom where he had conceded defeat less than a year before to Joe Clark’s Tories. This time, returned to office with a majority mandate, he told Liberal supporters gathered at the Château,“Well, welcome to the 1980s”—12 years after he was photographed sliding down a banister at the hotel during the 1968 federal Liberal leadership convention that sent him to 24 Sussex Dr. Skip ahead a few decades to 2012 and the launch of another Liberal Continued on Page 72

January 2013, Power & Inf luence—

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‘Perfect place for a political rendezvous,’ says Paul Martin Continued from Page 71 leadership race at the same hotel where one of the candidates, Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.), could one day make history and give Canada its first father and son to serve as the country’s prime ministers. But the hotel’s history is also personal, even for former prime ministers. John Turner’s ties to the Château date back to 1934, when his widowed mother, Phyllis Gregory, moved the family from British Columbia to Ottawa when she was appointed an economic adviser to the Tariff Board established by the Bennett government, with her becoming the first woman to hold a senior position in the Canadian public service. “Every Sunday we’d go to Mass at St. Joseph’s Parish on Wilbrod Street and then we’d go swimming at the Château Laurier and have lunch at the Canadian Grill,” recalls Mr. Turner, Canada’s 17th prime minister. His connection to the hotel continued when he began practising law in Montreal in 1953, and would stay at the Château Laurier whenever he was in Ottawa. Once in politics, as minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in Pearson’s Cabinet, and as Justice minister and later Finance minister in the Trudeau government, Mr. Turner frequently held lunchtime meetings at the Canadian Grill, a lower-level restaurant that opened in 1929 and closed in 1991. “You could get into a booth and a have a good, private conversation,” he says. “It’s a very friendly place—good food, good drink, good company, and very close to Parliament.” Paul Martin’s memories of the Château also date back to childhood when his father, Paul Martin Sr., served as minister of National Health and Welfare in Liberal prime minister Louis St. Laurent’s government. “I spent a lot of time with my dad there,” recalls Mr. Martin, Canada’s 21st prime minister. “One place where my dad went every single day was to the Château Laurier pool—and his great pal, whom he swam with, was George


Hees, a Conservative. Sometimes I’d have my bathing suit and swim with my dad. But a lot of time, I’d just come down and see him as he swam,” says 74-year-old Mr. Martin. “There’s no doubt about the grandeur and importance of the Château Laurier as the perfect place for a political rendezvous. But for me, what it really was, was a swimming pool,” says Mr. Martin. For R.B. Bennett, it was home, from about 1927, when he became leader of the Conservative Party, until 1938, when he stepped down from the leadership. During that time, Mr. Bennett also served as Canada’s 11th prime minister, and since there was no official residence at the time, the never-married millionaire made a 17-room, 5,000-square-foot suite with a private dining room at the Château his luxurious bachelor pad. Mr. Bennett was also a lifelong teetotaller. But “he certainly understood the pleasures of the table,” recalls his 80-year-old, Toronto-based nephew, William Herridge. “Every other Sunday, I had lunch with R.B., and what an event it was.” Mr. Herridge, who practised law as his famous uncle did, remembers the “wonderful” lamb chops and baked Alaska usually served by the waiter Mr. Bennett used to call “Cufty.” Known by his political opponents as “Iron Heel” for his fierce stance against Communism, Bennett also had a “sense of fun,” according to Mr. Herridge, whose mother, Mildred, was his uncle’s sister and whose father, also named William, was appointed by Bennett to serve as minister (the equivalent of an ambassador) to the United States. Mr. Herridge remembers being fascinated by a shower in Bennett’s bathroom that would send water in three directions. “R.B. asked me whether I’d like to have a closer look and get in the shower, which I did and he turned on the water,” he recalls. “My parents, who had to dry me out, thought this incident was not funny at all. But R.B. and I laughed and laughed, and then laughed some more.” Bennett wasn’t the only prime minister to live at the Château.

After being sworn into office on June 30, 1984, Mr. Turner assembled his Cabinet from a suite at the hotel while Mr. Trudeau was preparing to vacate 24 Sussex. Mr. Turner’s choice of the Château as his temporary residence wasn’t that unusual. Mr. Trudeau lived there longer, from the time he was first elected as the Member of Parliament for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal in 1965 until he succeeded Pearson as prime minister in 1968. Even after he became Prime Minister, Trudeau regularly dropped by the Château Laurier for a swim before he had a pool built at 24 Sussex Dr. After winning the federal PC leadership and becoming leader of the Official Opposition in 1983, Brian Mulroney and his wife Mila also called the hotel home before eventually moving into Stornoway. The Château’s connection to politics remains. Last November, U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson hosted an election-night viewing party at the hotel. Maclean’s and L’actualité magazines named Green Party Leader and MP Elizabeth May 2012 Parliamentarian of the Year at a swishy event that attracted a who’s who from Parliament Hill. In March, the Writers’ Trust of Canada will bring together politicians of different stripes to its annual Politics and the Pen gala at the hotel. Charlotte Gray says that when the hotel opened its doors in 1912, it formed a solitary triangle of “remarkable” buildings, including Centre Block and Langevin Block when Ottawa “was still barely a lumber town” and the government and public service were run by a “ tight little elite and homogenous” group of men. “No other hotel in Ottawa has that absolutely wonderful front lobby with the statue of Laurier and the pillars and the wood panelling, and the porters still wearing livery. You can feel the dignity and history of the place,” she says. “It’s like Centre Block, except that you don’t have to immediately empty out your pockets at security when you enter.”

Style

BODY ART

MPs on why they got tattoos

NDP MP Glenn Thibeault, 43, has represented Sudbury, Ont., since 2008. Amy Patterson is his tattoo artist who owns the Twisted Doll tattoo shop in Sudbury. Photograph by Laura Ryckewaert, The Hill Times

‘Family is very important to me’: Thibeault N

DP MP Glenn Thibeault, 43, who represents Sudbury, Ont., has three tattoos and all are representative of his family. In addition to a family coat of arms on his back, he has a tattoo on the shoulder of each arm, one for each of his two daughters,Trinity and Thea. “My daughter on my right arm is my first daughter, Trinity, so I have the symbolism of the trinity … and then around it are Celtic knots with a pink heart on top which she chose when she was six,” says Mr. Thibeault, who says the original tattoo was finished when Trinity was one year old in 2004 and the Celtic knots were added in 2008, just before his daughter turned six.

Mr. Thibeault, who used to work in radio news as an afternoon announcer and a reporter, said his daughter, Thea, was named after the mythological female Greek Titan who created the sun, the moon, and the dawn. “So this tattoo is the sun, but inside it is the cross, because the Celtic meaning of the name Thea means ‘Gift of God,’ ” says Mr. Thibeault. “Then my family coat of arms on my back. I had my cousin actually research, my family goes back to the 1400s in France, so he has the coat of arms. Some reds, some blues—ironically, no orange—but

with a shield, and then like a helmet and some stars and some wings.” Mr. Thibeault says he’s currently working on a new tattoo that he wants to get in honour of his mother who died a few years ago. “Family is very important to me, as you can probably guess from talking about my tattoos,” says Mr. Thibeault, who says he got all his tattoos in Sudbury. “Amy Patterson is the name of the artist who has done my work. She owns the Twisted Doll tattoo shop in Sudbury. She was at a different tattoo shop before [Red Dragon, where Mr. Thibeault had his tattoos done].”—Laura Ryckewaert Power & Inf luence 2013—

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You want a piece of me: Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, pictured at their weigh-in last year before taking part in a celebrity boxing match in March in Ottawa. Surprisingly, Mr. Trudeau won the fight.

Trudeau has tattoo of mother Earth inside a Haida raven L

iberal leadership candidate and MP Justin Trudeau, (Papineau, Que.), 42, also sports some well-known ink. Taking up the majority of his left shoulder, Mr. Trudeau has a tattoo of the planet Earth inside the drawing of a Haida raven. In a tweet from March 14, 2012 describing his tattoos to a curious tweeter, Mr. Trudeau said he got the tattoo of the Earth done when he was 23 years old and added on the Haida First Nation raven when he was 40. In the tweet, Mr. Trudeau referred to it as “the Robert Davidson raven.” Mr. Davidson is a well-respected First Nations artist of Haida and Tlingit descent. Before entering federal politics, Mr. Trudeau, son of former PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau, worked as a social studies and French teacher at the West Point Grey Academy and Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School in Vancouver.—Laura Ryckewaert


‘I wanted something beautiful and elegant’ N

DP MP Rosane Doré Lefebvre, 28, (Alfred-Pellan, Que.) said her large, shoulder tattoo of a variety of flowers is her “masterpiece.” “I have a lot of friends who are artists, who started as tattoo artists. The flowers here, it’s one of my friend’s, Dillon [Sachen], who is now living in B.C. He is one of the most amazing tattoo artists in B.C.—he’s really good. This was his first black-and-grey piece that big. So he drew it. I said I want something really artistic, black and grey, really smooth, really beautiful,” says Ms. Doré Lefebvre, adding that she showed him the flowers she wanted and he started drawing it. “This one is with a special technique for the shading inside and he wanted to try it and I was willing to do it. I gave him my arm and said, ‘Do what you want, I trust you.’ It was his first time for black and grey for that kind of art, but I had a lot of trust in Dylan, and as you can see, I think the tattoo is really great.” Ms. Doré Lefebvre says she got the tattoo in 2008 while at the beginning of her university degree in geography and political science at the University of Montreal. “Most of them are lilies,” she says, pointing at her arm. “Those ones are dahlias, and this one is eucalyptus. This one doesn’t signify something big, it’s just because I wanted something beautiful and elegant and I wanted a half sleeve.”—Laura Ryckewaert

Style

‘Some people say I have wolf eyes,’ says Sen. Brazeau


Q

uebec Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, 38, who was summoned to the Senate in 2009 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said of his five tattoos, his two favourites are the ones on his arms. On his right arm, he has a tattoo of a wolf howling at the moon and on his left arm, he has a tribal tattoo. “Some people say I have wolf eyes, but I got this after my mom passed away and she had real wolf eyes. She had really yellow eyes, not green, but yellow, and, in memory of her, I got that. That was in 2004 here in Ottawa,” said Sen. Brazeau, adding that he’s gotten all of his tattoos in Ottawa. Sen. Brazeau, a member of the Algonquin First Nation from the Kitigan Zibi reserve in Maniwaki, Que., and the former national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, said his arm tattoos were both done at Planet Ink, located on Rideau Street in downtown Ottawa. “This one is obviously a pretty huge one,”said Sen. Brazeau, pointing at the tribal tattoo on his left arm.“I have my zodiac sign there [a Scorpio]… that’s just basically a native tribal design that I had somebody draw up.” “This is still a work in progress because eventually I’m going to have it finished where this part here [the top of the tribal design] will come down the chest probably in eagle feathers. So it will have sort of like the headdress in eagle feathers come down the chest area,”explained Sen. Brazeau. “I was just looking for something tribal, and myself not being too much an artist, I can’t even draw a stick man, but I had somebody just do something and I liked it just because it covered the entire arm. Once the finished product is done it will be a lot nicer.”—Laura Ryckewaert

Rookie NDP MP Rosane Doré Lefebvre

“It’s a fencing mask at the centre, with an épée, a foil, and a sabre, because I was doing fencing, and it’s on the right arm because I’m right-handed in fencing, so that’s why it’s there. And on the bottom it says, ‘Always ready for a fight’ in French,” explaines NDP MP Christine Moore, 29, (Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Que.), who says she got the tattoo, her biggest piece of body art, at a shop in Québec City called Québec Tattoo. Ms. Moore began fencing when she was 12 and made it to the Canadian championship, but stopped fencing when she was 22 or 23 because she didn’t have time in her busy schedule. Before she was elected in the May 2, 2011 federal election, she spent time working as a member of the 52nd Field Ambulance reservists and later went into nursing. She has also learned to weld and has experience breeding cats. She said she got the tattoo while she was working as a reservist medical technician for a cadet camp in Gaspésie, Que. “All the tattoos I get are really important for me,” she said.“Fencing, it’s a great sport, and I really love it.”—Laura Ryckewaert


‘Always ready for a fight’

Rookie NDP MP Christine Moore Power & Inf In f luence 2013— 2013

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Parties

Rock on: Andrew Cash and the Carbon Tax, left to right, NDP MPs Andrew Cash, Robert Aubin, Charlie Angus, François Lapointe, and Pierre Dionne Labelle at the annual All-Party Party.

Get that man a glass: Jamie Stunt of Oz Kafe, 2012’s Gold Medal Plates Ottawa winner.

Party time: a guide to some of political Ottawa’s best parties Peter Stoffer, who hosted the party previously. While veterans say that it has been less raucous lately than in years past, its non-partisan roots are unique and continue to give it an especially convivial tone. In 2012, Andrew Cash and his satirically-named band of MPs, nicknamed The Carbon Tax for the night, belted out Elvis and some Cajun numbers for the crowd, while Liberal leadership hopeful Justin Trudeau and MP Hedy Fry sang the duet, Baby It’s Cold Outside. The event has grown since the years when hundreds of sweaty Hill-types crammed into West Block’s Room 200 to celebrate. It’s now held in the Government Conference Centre, and the party’s thousands of guests spill into multiple rooms with live music. In 2012, the event drew more than 2,000 staffers, journalists, Parliamentarians and others from the Hill community. It also raised an estimated $10,000 for the local United Way.

BY JESSICA BRUNO ity the beleaguered Parliamentarian. He or she is invited to hundreds of events a year. There are prayer breakfasts, panel discussion lunches, lobby group buffets, dinner fundraisers, as well as concerts, canapés, wine and cheeses, and beer tastings, seafood-, beef- or pork-themed events. Events celebrating Canada’s past. Event’s celebrating Canada’s future. Events worrying about Canada’s past or future. If they had to only choose a few, Parliamentarians likely go to the ones related to their riding or their critic area. Staffers, meanwhile, go to all of them to munch on free food and free-flowing wine or beer. But, these are the top 10 must-RSVP events on Hillites’ social calendars where MPs, lobbyists, media, and staffers come out to play. ALL-PARTY PARTY Any good politician knows they have to say thanks to the regular folks, and that’s what the annual AllParty Party is all about. Every year, Parliamentarians gather to celebrate the work of the thousands of Parliament Hill staffers who keep the building safe, the committees running on time, and the rants in Question Period translated into both official languages, among countless jobs integral to keeping Parliament running, sometimes around the clock. The most recent APP was hosted by Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, Liberal Senator Jim Munson, Conservative Senator Vern White and NDP MP Paul Dewar. They took over from legendary good-time NDP MP



P

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF FORMER PARLIAMENTARIANS ANNUAL DINNER Old guard mingles with new at the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians’ Douglas C. Frith fundraising dinner at the Château Laurier each autumn. It’s a fun one. There, Parliamentarians of years past come

Par ties

Photograph courtesy George Pimentel, NAC

GOVERNOR GENERAL PERFORMING ARTS AWARDS The pinnacle of a week of festivities in the spring, the gala performance for the GG’s Performing Arts Awards are a spectacle of the best Canada has to offer in theatre, dance, music and film. Of course, the Governor General and the honourees are in attendance, and they sometimes bring along high-profile guests, like Salmon Rushie, who came to see director Deepa Mehta honoured last year. GG David Johnston Afterwards, and Sharon Johnston there is a grand out on the town. reception in the foyer of the NAC for all guests, and not only a VIP reception upstairs but a VVIP reception in a private room as well as an after party. Last year’s was at Play Food and Wine Bar in Ottawa’s Byward Market.


GOLD MEDAL PLATES OTTAWA For Ottawa foodies and power-eaters, this fall event is one of the most sought-after tickets of the year. At Gold Medal Plates, eight of Ottawa’s best and most ambitious chefs compete in a culinary sudden-death battle for the admiration of guests’ and judges’ palates. Similar competitions are held across Canada, and 2012’s Ottawa winner, Jamie Stunt of Oz Kafe, went to a nationwide competition in February. Since its inception in 2004, the event has raised $6-million for Canadian athletics. It is studded with Olympians such as gold-medalling kayaker Adam van Koeverden and gold-medal trampolinist Rose MacLeannan, and entertainment is courtesy of the Canadian A-list. Rocker Sam Roberts and Barenaked Lady Ed Robertson were on the roster in 2012. The political class is also out in full force. In 2011, the event served as a coming-out of sorts for a certain ex-PMO staffer and divorcée rookie MP, adding a generous helping of Hill buzz to an event that’s already known for its innovative dishes.

HOPE LIVE One of the most highly-anticipated events on Ottawa’s fall social calendar, Hope Live, is a knee-slapping, toe-tapping night full of laughter and music. The night, held at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, is the brainchild of Rogers CommunicaLeona Aglukkaq tions lobbyist Heidi Bonnell. It and Rick Mercer. raises money for Fertile Future, a charity that helps young people with cancer learn about the effect it will have on their fertility. Ms. Bonnell, now the mother of twin boys Bennett and Jonah, has survived cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 2012 Hope Live featured Ms. Bonnell’s friends and regular Hope Live performers Jan Arden, Rick Mercer and Seamus O’Regan, as well as Dan Mangan and Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle. Bigwigs in attendance have included former PM Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline, former Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin and his wife Jodean, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and most of Parliament’s front benches.


Photographs by Jake Wright and Steve Gerecke, The Hill Times

out alongside contemporary MPs and Senators to catch up, swap war stories, and raise money for the association’s philanthropic work. CAFP has a number of student internship as well as public school and campus outreach programs that aim to get youth more connected to democracy at home and abroad. It’s a rare chance to spot some of the most veteran members of Ottawa’s political class. Last year, the event was CFL-themed, and it highlighted the present and former Parliamentarians who were also professional football players.

JAMES MOORE’S MUSIC AND MOVIE NIGHTS The man on the front bench with the darkrimmed hipster glasses, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore knows how to mobilize taste-makJames Moore, Monsieur Lazhar ers in Ottawa to director Philippe Falardeau, and actors promote Canadian Émilien Néron, and Sophie Nélisse. film and music. Since 2008, Mr. Moore and his partners, including Music Canada and Telefilm Canada, have showcased some of Canada’s most promising filmmakers and musicians at the National Arts Centre in the hopes that Members of Parliament, Senators and others will become cultural ambassadors in their hometowns. “Be proud of what our artists do in the world,” said Mr. Moore at the screening of Oscar-nominated Monsieur Lazhar in 2011. Another highlight includes the Ottawa premier of Barney’s Version, complete with a red carpet, strobe lights, eTalk Daily and Canadian supporting actor Scott Speedman. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and wife Laureen even came out to see Breakaway, the story of a Sikh kid in Toronto who just wants to play hockey. Music nights, which started in 2011 with Blue Rodeo and Quebec singers Marie-Eve Janvier and Jean-François Breau, take place in the NAC’s studio and offer an intimate concert experience. Rolling Stone favourites, The Sheepdogs, and Québécois team, Karkwa, appeared in 2012. Juno award winning country singer Johnny Reid and former Montreal Canadiens-drafteecome-musician Étienne Drapeau kicked off the series for 2013. Adding to the evening’s fun, the talent often sticks around after the show for dancing, drinking, a bite to eat, giving the hundreds of eager fans and guests the opportunity to get up close. Continued on Page 78 Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Par ties NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE GALA

JAIMIE ANDERSON PARLIAMENTARY SCHOLARSHIP Former Parliament Hill staffer Jaimie Anderson was 23 when she died of cancer on Jan. 16, 2010. To honour her memory and raise money for a Parliamentary internship program in her name, her well-known political family holds an annual fundraiser in the form of a laid-back party and music night Peter Mansbridge and at the respected Black Sheep Inn Bruce Anderson. in Wakefield, Que. Her dad, Rick Anderson, worked first for the Liberals and later the Reform Party for a combined 30 years. Her mom, Michelle Williams, is the daughter of Blair Williams, past Liberal Party national director. Her uncle, Bruce Anderson, also worked on the Hill and is a senior pollster, public relations consultant and regular At Issue panelist on CBC TV’s The National. Her cousin Kate Purchase is director of strategic planning and director of media relations for the Liberal research bureau. The fun semi-off-the-record evening has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the program so far. Laureen Harper has attended, as have a number of Cabinet ministers. Some MPs have also performed songs as part of the night, including NDP Megan Leslie, who sang Patsy Cline’s Walkin’ After Midnight last year. CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge has hosted, and his wife, Stratford Festival actress Cynthia Dale, has also sung, as have local acts Sneezy Waters, the Claytones, and Lonesome Paul.

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Often the site of high-profile Ottawa parties, the NAC has a gala of its very own. Over the years, the dinner and a show event has raised millions for the National Youth and Education Amanda Forsythe, Yo-Yo Ma, Trust, which supLaureen Harper, and John Baird. ports programs like musicians in schools, teacher resource kits, March break theatre camps and the in-school music alive program. In the lead-up to the night, a select group of about 12 board members, including Laureen Harper who is the NAC’s honorary gala chair and daughter Rachel, as well as a few lucky journalists, get to venture into the NAC’s kitchen to taste test the menu for the night. Last year featured pianist Lang Lang and violinist Shuai Shi. Ms. Harper’s date last year was Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. Also in attendance were former ministers Jim Prentice and John Manley, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin and former chief of defence staff Walt Natynczyk. PARLIAMENTARY PRESS GALLERY DINNER An event known for its bun-throwing, drunken-tabledancing past, the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner has become a little more buttoned-up in recent years, but it’s still a rare opportunity for Ottawa’s hacks to let loose with politicians, their flacks, and lobbyists alike. While Stephen Harper hasn’t been to a dinner since he became PM, he has, er, graciously allowed his Cabinet ministers to attend. In fact they are highly sought after as guests to what CBC’s Rick Mercer calls a “high school prom for journalists.”After dinner when it’s time to hit the floor, they’re also some of the best dancers. After the main event, traditionally held in the past on Parliament Hill and later at the National Press Club, but most recently at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, partygoers migrate to Métropolitain Brasserie for more drinks and dancing. Then, on to the after-after parties, and even later, to the Elgin Street Diner for breakfast. POLITICS AND THE PEN The prestigious Writers Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing gala at the Château Laurier every spring is a landmark, always sold-out, event on the social calendar. Dressed in ball gowns, tuxedos and specialized medallions denoting their achievements, the A-list of Canadian politics, academia, and the arts come out to play. Last year, the $25,000 grand prize went to Richard Gwyn for his book, National Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His life, Our Times. At cocktails last year attendees mingled with the nominated authors, and others from the Canadian social landscape, such as author Joseph Boyden, columnist Barbara Amiel Black, historian Charlotte Gray, and political scientist Janice Gross Stein. Most members of Cabinet and the official opposition were there too. While the main event pumps out the glam, the festivities spill over into Zoe’s afterwards, where the bar is packed shoulder to shoulder and drinks start getting spilled. Sponsors have also been known to host pre-reception parties upstairs in the Château’s suites and after-after-parties across Sussex Drive at Métropolitain Brasserie into the wee hours of the morning.

Hand me a pint: Liberals, pictured at D’Arcy McGee’s in 2011 after their disastrous election win. It was the first time many Liberals were back in Ottawa after the election to say their final goodbyes to fellow defeated MPs, and to staffers who also lost their jobs.

Hot political bars to hang out BY JESSICA BRUNO n today’s economy, most political and government players try to keep their expense accounts down. But everyone likes to socialize over a pint or two on their own dime. Conservatives have been known to frequent Sir John A.’s on Elgin Street while Liberals head to the Cock and Lion on Sparks Street for sporadic Wonderful Wednesday events. There’s also the Arc Lounge on Slater Street, which hosts some Ottawa Writers’ Festival events and has held a number of political book launches. The National Arts Centre’s Le Café is also a popular place to grab a bite, and there’s always the classic Wilfrid’s Restaurant and Zoé’s Bar at the Château Laurier. Mama Theresa’s on Somerset Street and the Parliament Pub, within view of the Peace Tower, are also old hangouts decorated with photos and caricatures of prominent Canadian playmakers over the years. Here are the top five places Ottawa’s political people go to eat or be eaten.

I

BRIXTON’S PUB The NDP have made this narrow little pub on Sparks Street their own. On busy nights, New Democrat MPs and staffers have been known to take over the entire bar, and when it’s warm, spill onto the patio outside. The spot is also a favourite for CTV and The Globe and Mail’s Hill journalists, whose offices are nearby on Queen Street. The pub was also named Hillites’ favourite happy hour spot in The Hill Times’ 16th Annual Most Valuable Politician & All Politics Poll. Part of the pub’s draw is charming and hardworking bartender Julie McCarthy, who has become a member of the Hill community over the years. D’ARCY MCGEE’S Everyone on the Hill knows the story of the original Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Confederation who was shot on Sparks Street in 1868 just steps from where the pub that bears his name now stands, at the corner of Elgin and Sparks streets. In the past, D’Arcy’s was a prime stomping ground for Liberal Party members looking for a pint and some Blarney chips. Despite their endangered species status, it’s not unusual to still spot a table of Grit staffers and MPs having a round of drinks and some fries at one of their tables. The bar now seats bottoms of all parti-

san stripes. It was also voted the second Most Popular Happy Hour Place for Hill-types in The Hill Times’ 2012 Most Valuable Politician & All Politics Poll. HY’S STEAKHOUSE AND COCKTAIL BAR This stalwart of the Ottawa scene, known for its restaurant with deep velvet booths, a private room and dark wood-panelling, has the look and feel of a traditional highpower back room.The bar is more open and airy with lots of windows. It’s mostly the old guard that continue to patronize Hy’s on a regular basis, which has been open for about 30 years, although it is a favourite stomping ground for the city’s top lobbyists, and still plays host to several events, including Ottawa’s unofficial post-budget deliberations every spring, with journalists, lobbyists and politicians alike heading over for a drink and to talk shop. On those nights it’s been the setting for more than one impassioned not-so-sober debate. MÉTROPOLITAIN BRASSERIE Barely off of the Hill at the corner of Sussex Drive and Rideau Street, Métropolitain Brasserie is a regular spot for Conservative ministers and Mr. Harper himself, on occasion. It’s also a go-to spot for Ottawa’s lobbyists, who hold Parliamentary cocktail hours there often. The restaurant also goes out of its way to attract political types with its evening Hill hour, when the place has specials on its highend seafood and oysters. It’s then that the younger staffers and MPs on the Hill are known to head over for a nosh. This popularity contributed to the Met’s success in The Hill Times’ All Politics Poll, where it was Hillites’ third-Most Favourite Happy Hour Place to come and unwind after work. The brasserie is known for its seafood and boasts the city’s largest oyster bar. Chef Mike Poliquin won last year’s Annual Bytown Oyster Festival shucking competition to boot. With its Parisian, fin-de-siècle, burlesque feel, the Met is also a popular after-party destination, with guests from events like the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner and the Politics and the Pen gala continuing to schmooze or dance the night away. PLAY FOOD AND WINE Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s signature on a bottle in Play’s wall of wine is one of many politiContinued on Page 80 Power & Inf luence 2013—

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Political Hangouts

Political Hangouts

Continued from Page 79 cal John Hancocks that greet patrons when they step into the popular tapas restaurant. Other bottles have been inked by late NDP leader Jack Layton and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose, to name a few. A five-minute walk from the Hill, on the west edge of Ottawa’s Byward Market, the small-plates and good wine establishment is the product of two of the city’s most respected restaurateurs, Stephen Beckta and chef Michael Moffat. The establishment breaks out its delicious charcuterie when it

hosts a number of political events, like the warm retirement party former prime minister Joe Clark, Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Ms. Ambrose and Conservative MP Michael Chong gave to legendary Hill staffer Rosaline McAngus last year. It also hosted the surprise party for Minister of State for Finance Ted Menzie’s 60th birthday in 2012. The after-afterparty for the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards and the post-dinner reception for the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner have been at Play in past years, packing in the crowds for some late-night fun.

Boom: Jeff O’Reilly, general manager of D’Arcy McGree’s, strikes a pose.

Photographs by Jake Wright, The Hill Times

Where Ottawa’s political players like to knock one back

Brixton’s is another popular watering hole for politicos and Hill media.

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