Michael Ignatieff’s new Director of Communications has an interesting background

“Everything old is new again” is the buzz coming from Liberals and journalists in Ottawa. Peter Donolo’s the new boss of the OLO shop (the Dunno-LO as one journalist told me weeks ago) and today we’ve learned that he’s finally put some new key players in place after the wholly awkward ejection of Davey/Fairbrother.

Among the “fresh” faces is Michael Ignatieff’s new Director of Communications, Mario Laguë, a man the CBC’s Rosemary Barton tells us is among the new gang that “[knows] Quebec inside-out”.

But, a Lexis-Nexis/Informart plunge into the past tells us more!

It appears that Mario Laguë was not only hired by Paul Martin to put a brave face on the sponsorship scandal, but Ignatieff’s new D.Comm was also part of a three-man panel with Chuck Guité that hired then Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano’s Chief of Staff to replace Guité, who was retiring. Stephen Harper, then opposition leader, criticized the hire saying the sponsorship scandal could have been stopped if a senior bureacrat was hired in the position instead.

Affidavit shows how Guité was replaced Document reveals membership of team that chose boss for sponsorship program — The Globe and Mail, October 18th, 2005 by Daniel Leblanc.

OTTAWA — An affidavit prepared by the Public Service Commission for the Gomery inquiry sheds new light on the controversial hiring of a former Liberal aide to head the sponsorship program in 1999, including the role of a federal official who would become an aide to Prime Minister Paul Martin.

The inquiry heard conflicting testimony about how Pierre Tremblay, then the chief of staff to then public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, was hired to replace retiring bureaucrat Chuck Guité. Mr. Guité said he rigged the process at Mr. Gagliano’s behest; the former minister denied any political interference.

The affidavit, which went unnoticed when it was tabled in May, shows that Mr. Tremblay’s hiring was approved by a three-member selection board made up of Mr. Guité, Public Service Commission executive resourcing consultant Michael Carey, and Mario Laguë, a long-time Liberal supporter who became Mr. Martin’s first director of communications when he became Prime Minister. The affidavit said Mr. Tremblay was hired “based on the recommendation of the selection board.”

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said yesterday the problems with the sponsorship program could have been stopped if an experienced civil servant had been hired in 1999 instead of Mr. Tremblay. The problems continued until an RCMP investigation was launched in 2002, but by then Mr. Tremblay was working in another federal agency.

When Prime Minister Paul Martin was in office he hired Laguë to “cover-up” the sponsorship scandal according to opposition Conservatives at the time.

Assistant to PM contributed to cover-up, opposition says Mario Lague included in strategy sessions when problems first surfaced, e-mail says; Mario Lague included in strategy sessions when problems first surfaced, e-mail says — The Globe and Mail, February 20th, 2004 by Campbell Clark

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Paul Martin’s communications director was a key player in the Chrétien government’s efforts to put the best face on serious problems in the sponsorship program in 2000, government records show.

Opposition politicians focused many attacks in the Commons yesterday on Mario Lague, Mr. Martin’s communications director, insisting he was involved in efforts to “cover up” the sponsorship scandal, which saw millions misused from 1996 to 2002.

Mr. Martin fought back, asserting that Mr. Lague “was not involved in the management of the sponsorship file.”

However, records show that Mr. Lague was included in top-level meetings to plan strategy when problems began to emerge. An e-mail from September, 2000, obtained by an independent researcher and provided to The Globe and Mail, indicates that Mr. Lague was one of a small group of senior officials and political aides who plotted to put the best face on a damaging audit.

Liberals in support of new citizenship guide

The new guide released this week for newcomers to Canada has been generally well accepted by the mainstream of Canada. Of course, some on the left are criticizing the guide for focusing on Canada’s “militaristic” history and for not mincing words when it comes to “barbaric cultural practices” not in line with Canadian values.

Liberals are finding it difficult to oppose the guide as some of their heavy hitters are already backing up the government.

Marc Chalifoux was Michael Ignatieff’s former political assistant and he is quoted in the government’s press release (along with Margaret McMillan, Rudyard Griffiths and Jack Granatstein):

“Discover Canada should be in the hands of not only new Canadians, but every high school student in Canada,” said Marc Chalifoux, Executive Vice-President of the Historica-Dominion Institute. “All citizens, whether they were born in Canada or not, need to understand how the institutions of this country came to be. This guide tells them how.”

Former Paul Martin Director of Communications Scott Reid had this to say on CBC’s Power & Politics:

I think that the citizenship quiz actually is a good initiative. I like the updating. Vimy Ridge, Louis Riel, these are references that ought to be part and parcel of it. You know, when you take a look at the people that guided its reshaping: Canadians of unquestioned qualification.

Former Liberal Party President Stephen Ledrew also gave the guide thumbs up on his CP24 show yesterday.

You can peruse the guide here:

Michael Ignatieff on the Monarchy

Michael Ignatieff, after the separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, wrote an article published in the Montreal Gazette on December 12th, 1992:

LONDON – We are being told to sympathize with the private grief of the tragic couple. We are being asked to believe that the horrid tabloids are to blame. Buckingham Palace and No. 10 Downing Street smoothly assure us that the couple’s private misery need have no constitutional implications.

Enough of this nonsense. The Royal Family is not doing its job. And what pray is that? It is to represent and to guarantee the institutional continuity of the British state.

The separation announcement effectively declared that the monarchy had placed its dynastic succession on hold until the unhappy couple sort themselves out. The monarchy has suspended normal service and has no idea when it will be resumed.

We swear allegiance to the Queen and her heirs and successors. As of Thursday’s announcement we no longer know who they actually will be. Will it be Charles? Or Prince William? Will Diana be Queen?

In constitutional theory, prime ministers and politicians come and go but the Queen and her heirs go on forever.

On Thursday, the proper constitutional order was stood on its head. The prime minister was on his feet in the Commons acting as the source of constitutional continuity, struggling to make it appear in his usual unconvincing way, that nothing was really amiss.

Both the prime minister and the palace must dwell in a realm of deep unreality not to have anticipated the gasp of disbelief in the Commons chamber at their blithe contention that Britain will accept the prospect of being ruled by a miserably separated couple.

In reality, as both MPs and the public appear to have realized, we are heading into constitutional No Man’s Land. The problem is not that the monarchy is failing to live up to some rosy family ideal. The British royal family never has and in any case that is not its job. Along with the dutiful diligent and much-loved Queen, we have had madmen, philanderers and incompetents on the throne.

Listening to the separation announcement, I found myself wondering exactly why this shambles was so magically preferable to an elected presidency. Dignity, authority and respect – all the qualities peeling away from the monarchy by the hour – are there to behold in the distinguished figure of Richard von Weizsacker, Germany’s president. He has even used his office to speak for the German liberal conscience. Could someone tell me why the current Speaker of the British House of Commons could not do just as well? At least she has no family we would have to endure.

I will be told that republicanism is alien to British traditions. This is monarchist cant. Britain is the home of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. From the English revolution of 1640 to the Reform Act of 1832, the British people taught continental Europe how to bend a monarchy to the popular will.

The rights of free-born Englishmen, the sovereignty of Parliament and the independence of the judiciary were all won in essentially republican struggles against monarchical power.

The result is a unique form of government in which “We, the people” consent to be ruled by a hereditary monarch. We think of ourselves as subjects rather than citizens, but the reality is that the monarchy is a creature, even a prisoner, of public opinion.

It is this unstable combination of republican sovereignty, clothed in the trappings of monarchy, which is slowly coming apart. The British now have to decide whether to admit how republican their history actually is or whether to continue with the fantasy that they are ruled by kings and queens.

The tabloid press faithfully reflects the rabid and schizophrenic attitude of the public. One minute the tabloid hounds are licking the royal hand, the next they are biting it off. One day they bay for the Queen to pay taxes “like the rest of us.” The next they are weeping tears over the end of the royal fairy tale.

What is depressing is not the cynical opportunism but the corruption of an authentically British republican tradition into a rabid kind of porno-populism. The royal family is now being torn apart by a uniquely British combination of raging envy and fawning deference. This schizophrenia perfectly expresses the conflict between republican and monarchical principles at the heart of the constitution.

What happens now depends not on what the palace wishes, but on what the public comes to believe is right. My fervent wish is that it will regretfully but firmly decide enough is enough.

The future looks decidedly bleak for the institution. The tabloids will ferret out the royal mistresses and consorts soon enough. Separation will be followed by divorce. What then? We seem to be headed, slowly but surely, towards a humble Scandinavian monarchy, which bicycles to work, busies itself in inoffensive good works and tries desperately to make itself so boring that the tabloids will give up the chase.

But a Scandinavian-style monarchy is acceptable only if the British public finally admits that Britain’s days as a great power are over. For greatness is what monarchy once implied, and the greatness is irrevocably gone.

If so, why retreat further? Why not turn retreat into an opportunity for reform? Now is the time for the republican tradition in Britain to find its voice again.

Such respect for the monarchy as I have makes me believe they deserve a more honorable opponent than rabid porno-populism.

For the choice the British face is between clinging to an institution which has had its day or affirming what their history has always taught, which is that “We, the people” and not the crown are the source of all power and authority in this island.