The PMO is officially Not Impressed with the Liberals poaching one of their top bureaucrats out of the Privy Council Office. As said bureaucrat had access to as much confidential information as the Prime Minister himself, they’re concerned that information will make its way into the Liberal leader’s ear. Even after both sides agreed that a three month “cooling off” period was in order before said poached bureaucrat starts working at the new job, one anonymous government official fears that there will be “fireside chats” with the Liberal leader for the purpose of passing on confidential information, and that if he had a fundamental disagreement with the government’s direction, he should have asked to be transferred a long time ago.
Suffice to say, it’s one thing to be unimpressed, but if he’s a worthwhile staff member at his level, it’s unlikely that he would be so crass and unprofessional as to actually break the law and his various oaths in order to pass on such information to Ignatieff. Suddenly I’m reminded of the paranoid belief of some Conservatives that all civil servants are Liberal partisans, and that they can’t be trusted (and in the case of some Ministers, they are famous for telling staffers that they believe them to be corrupt and that they vow to clean them up, while meeting them for the first time as Minister). Way to treat them as the professionals that they really are.
Elsewhere, there are a lot of interesting things coming from the Congress of Aboriginal People since Patrick Brazeau accepted the offer for a Senate seat. There are divisions amongst the provincial wings, and some of them – Manitoba’s in particular – are saying that they were never happy with adopting the Conservative position on certain issues, even though Brazeau seemed to position the organisation behind the government. That Brazeau then went on to become a senator – rather prematurely at that – is something they find very interesting.
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