Angry in the Great White North
The learning curve
Friday, March 17, 2006 at 07:57 AM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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From the Globe and Mail via Bourque:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has imposed central control over all information and comments to the public issued by government officials and even cabinet ministers, directing them to have everything cleared by the Prime Minister's Office, according to an internal e-mail and government sources.

The orders, described in an e-mail to bureaucrats, indicate that ministers have been told to avoid talking about the direction of the government, and that the government wants them to be less accessible to the news media. And all government officials are instructed to avoid speaking about anything other than the five priorities outlined in the Conservative campaign.

"Maintain a relentless focus on the five priorities from the campaign. Reduce the amount of ministerial/public events that distract from the five priority areas identified in the campaign," the e-mail states.

Of course, anyone in the private sector is used to this sort of thing. Any major corporation I've worked for has always maintained a very strict "no comment" rule for all employees at all levels when dealing with the press. Only the pros in the communications group actually communicate to the outside world.

Now a government is not a corporation. Or is it? Shareholders or voters? CEOs or Prime Ministers? Division vice presidents or ministers? The fact is that any heirarchical organization will tend to look the same. Should it come as a surprise that they behave in a similar manner?

But then there is the whole democracy thing. Do these rules work against the ability of MPs to serve their constituents?

The article seems clear that this applies to all ministerial communications, not to riding issues. Though I suppose that for MPs who are ministers, given their added responsibility, they can expect their riding newsletters to be vetted as well.

For what it's worth, these sorts of rules tend to be very temporary. In projects I've managed, we've always started with the formal "all communications go through the project manager" phase. That never lasts long. Very quickly, I would ensure that once I understood the lines of communications, and the people in the project understood what their responsibilities were, and what they were allowed to promise and not promise to other departments, the reins were loosened dramatically.

It's the up-front investment in some discipline that pays dividends later. Call it a learning curve for a minority government with inexperienced ministers and staff, with a need to stay on message, focused on the priorities, with little time for distractions, and not too much capital with a particularly suspicious press corps to spend on buying forgiveness for missteps.

I expect that once key ministers are in sync with the message and the style of communications this government wants to use, the restrictions will be relaxed. It'll have to happen for the sake of efficiency.

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