Sunday, August 06, 2006

What the heck?

Something's way off kilter in Ottawa.

In recent days, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay has been notable for his silence. This has been a little puzzling, especially given the amazing amount of activity in that department recently.

Then, in today's news, we find a little activity in regards to a Canadian citizen who was turned over to China by Uzbekistan - after Canada didn't express any "interest" in the man. (Odd, considering he's a Canadian _citizen_ with no other national affiliation)

What is striking is this little paragraph:

"In the past 48 hours or so, Chinese government officials at a senior level assured our embassy officials in Beijing that they would not seek the death penalty against Mr. Celil," Conservative MP Jason Kenney said.


Waitasec here - something's way screwed up on this portfolio. Kenney is Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Kenney isn't the man's "riding MP", so we can't explain this away with that excuse, and it's more than a little dysfunctional for this announcement to be coming out of (indirectly) the PMO, when it's really a Foreign Affairs portfolio.

I suspect that this means a couple of things - first, the micromanagement in the PMO has more or less subsumed Foreign Affairs. This to me is quite probable, with Harper and Mackay making statements that are slightly inconsistent, I wouldn't be surprised if Harper is trying to "take control" of the situation. The second thing it suggests to me is that Mackay is being gradually marginalized in the cabinet. (Again, no big surprise - to paraphrase Frank Herbert's character "Baron Vladimir Harkonnen" - "Never trust a traitor, even one you created" - said after killing Dr. Yueh in Dune)

At the rate he's going, Harper's going to implode fairly soon - there's no way in creation that he can micromanage every portfolio that his ministers have, and he's got a pretty full plate already - with Emerson's softwood lumber deal falling apart, his stand on Israel and Lebanon falling flat with Canadians and goodness knows what else. While he may see himself as "managing the crisis", he's clearly not one of those "crack" managers that you can throw into a crisis and get things straightened out. (Besides - in the role of PM, one doesn't manage the crisis du jour - your job is to make sure the ship is headed in the correct direction - that's what you have ministers for)

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