harper's paranoia: the press

PM can't keep blaming messenger
National Post, February 22, 2006

OTTAWA - It's about communications, stupid.

Probe the reasons behind our rookie Prime Minister's stumbles in the month since his election and a failure to communicate will form the core of almost every one.

And when Stephen Harper doesn't like the messaging, he's perfected a standard response: Fire his messenger.

An unassuming, unflappable, upright fellow named William Stairs was named Harper's director of communications just two weeks ago. Flattering media profiles had barely been published by journalists hoping to induce their subject to commence preferential leaking when he was canned without explanation on Monday night, the fourth Harper mouthpiece put to pink-slip pasture in three years.

"One is a mistake, four is a pattern," quipped one former Canadian Alliance staffer with unfortunate Harper experience.

And let the record show Harper is also on his fourth chief of staff. But I digress.

In self-deprecating moments of brutal honesty, Stairs would call himself "Sgt. Schultz," the German prison guard of Hogan's Heroes television fame best known for closing his eyes while muttering "I know nothing, Nothing, NOTHING."

It was, sadly, part of his job description.

But the notoriously in-the-dark Stairs sent an unambiguous message by losing his job in such abrupt in-and-out fashion: This Prime Minister is the real director of communications. And a very bad one at that.

Consider the alleged offence that ultimately triggered Stairs's dismissal by a peeved PMO.

Stairs thought the backlash against former Liberal Cabinet minister David Emerson's defection to the Conservative front bench was dragging on longer than necessary because the besieged minister was evasive or missing at the microphone.

Staging a phone-in news conference by Emerson to deal head-on with the aftershocks of his floor-crossing was Stairs's idea. Cancelling it half an hour after its scheduled start, ostensibly because the minister was trapped in heavy traffic while sitting inside his own office, was Harper's doing.

The result was that the potential story of a defiant Emerson facing his critics was replaced by a Where's Waldo? yarn about a minister who couldn't figure out how to use his cellphone and then fibbed to save his skin.

The revolving communications door is not just a minor personnel matter, although it puts to question Harper's judgment as an employer for hiring and firing so frequently while struggling to fill dozens of key positions in his various departments.

It highlights a much bigger challenge for a minority government that can't afford warped messages, mixed messages or, perhaps worst of all, no messages at all to frame its behaviour.

Harper's problem is two-fold. Sidekick Carolyn Stewart Olsen, in the junior position of press secretary, has become more powerful than any director of communications by telling Harper what he wants to hear and feeding his lifelong paranoia of the press.

But this Prime Minister needs to understand that listening to his own muse doesn't always work. He needs the professional input of strategic experts like Stairs and perhaps his fifth-time-lucky pick for the task, former lobbyist Sandra Buckler (who should be warned not to take out any long-term mortgages based on the new job's six-figure income).

"I will be available when I have something to announce," Harper sniffed yesterday at a news conference that had all the makings of media relations damage control. He then went on to support Quebec's plan to shorten waiting lists using private-sector alternatives. Unfortunately, that plan was released by Jean Charest last week. And that ensures his proud endorsement will fall somewhere between an editor's delete button and a news brief. Another day, another lousy and late communications strategy.

Look, I know this sounds very much like inside baseball by a whining journalist denied a daily spoonfeeding of news to substitute for honest research. But governing well is an unknown accomplishment if it isn't communicated effectively.

If the new MO in the PMO is to hunker in the bunker until the Prime Minister is inclined to talk about a topic that strikes his fancy, a personnel problem looms. There are, after all, a limited number of communications directors to fire.
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