Our forgetful Norman Spector
The last I heard about Norman Spector, a former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, was that he had retired from the public service and was left to run a rambling website that was largely incoherent. Boy, was that story wrong. He’s something of an authority on Parliamentary matters, at least according to the DTM.
The Globe and Mail ran a very ironic commentary yesterday by Mr. Spector on PM Harper’s new CoS, Nigel Wright. Ironic, at least to the few of us who actually knew what Mr. Spector was like when he “served” Mr. Mulroney in 1990-91.
Reticent as I am to ever write or mention anything about what went on in my five years on Parliament Hill, this case warrants an exception. As best as I can recall, from my vantagepoint 50 feet down the hall, Mr. Spector failed miserably in the role: he wouldn’t return his calls, did little to move the needle on anything outside of Fed/Prov relations, and largely shadowed the role that the Clerk of the Privy Council was already performing with great aplomb. In hindsight, the qualities that made him an effective Fed/Prov bureaucrat probably didn’t fit the Chief role, which was amplified by his distaste for party politics.
Mr. Spector wrote in the Globe that when he arrived in the PMO, then PMO CoS Stanley Hartt handed him 41 sensitive files, files that often were being championed by important business people — all of which Mr. Spector promptly “farmed out” to various departments. That may or may not have been a good idea, but since Mr. Hartt was a former Deputy Minister of Finance, it’s not as though he wasn’t used to dealing with “powerful” business people in the name of what was good for the government and the nation.
The upshot of Mr. Spector’s column was his disbelief that Mr. Wright, as an Onex executive, would be able to insulate himself from the folks on Bay Street, Howe Street, and Old Montreal — the next generation of the very same powerful interests who were apparently hanging around Ottawa in 1991. I think Mr. Spector misunderstands something about the kind of person that Prime Minister Harper has recruited to Ottawa: he’s financially independent and owes no one.
He doesn’t need a free new fridge, or a free paint job, as other Chiefs of Staff to powerful political people have sold themselves out for in the not-too-distant past.
His business is almost exclusively outside of Canada, which means he’ll come to almost every situation with a clean record, but with the benefit of experiences that will serve his team extremely well.
He doesn’t need a job whenever his time in Ottawa comes to an end, so he need not worry about saying “no”, which is frequently the primary role of the PM’s CoS as far as the external system is concerned.
Being truly independent, in every sense of the word, is a gift that few people bring to such roles. Which means Mr. Wright won’t be asking the PM for the Ambassadorship to Israel — as Mr. Spector asked Mr. Mulroney — as his quid pro quo for 18 or 24 or 48 months in Langevin Block. As I recall, Mr. Spector loved the view from the lawn of the Ambassador’s official residence. Fair enough.
I don’t know where that situation would sit with Mary Dawson today, but Mr. Spector’s credentials as an arbiter of the PMO post-employment code are worthly of reflection.
MRM
(this post, like all blogs, is an opinion piece)
Having had an office further than Mr. McQueen, but just across the street in East Block, what Mark wrote is entirely true, and we should thank Mark for telling people that the Emperor had no clothes.
Whatever the short comings of elected and accountable politicians, be they better than Mr Spector’s unelected and unaccountable reign.
Perhaps Mr. Spector could be forgiven not being able to see the difference with Chief of Staff and Clerk of the Privy Council at the time, given that he carried himself around Ottawa as one blinded by his own exceeding light, with an air of “I’m Norman Spector and you are not”.
But the point is not Norman. It is the lesson that he teaches us, and that is that now, as during his reign of 90-92, the Canadian economy is at a severe tipping point. It is good that we have someone with the real world experience of Nigel in that central role who can devote all his attention to the task at hand, rather than an ongoing calculation towards positioning for a future diplomatic appointment.
Let’s all give Nigel a chance before we judge. In my own selfishness as a father and a Canadian, I hope he is successful, for we all have too much at stake to poison our well.