Categories: Capital Read, Inside the Queensway

GiornoWatch: The rise and fall of the Muttartian Empire

by kadyomalley on Friday, February 13, 2009 9:20am - 11 Comments

A glance through the latest changes to GEDS confirms that the Giornectonic plate shifting that began earlier this week continues to reshape the geography of the Langevinoverse.

The most visible change to the landscape, as of last night: Planning, Priorities and Research – created during the early days of post-Brodiean upheaval last July – has been divided into two distinct entities: Strategic Initiatives and Public Liaison and Planning and Priorities. Although the latter may retain all but the somewhat amorphous research designation from the previous office, it will be headed up by two imports from Policy: Jasmine Igneski and Amanda Philp.

The crew of the now mothballed PPR, meanwhile – including its director, Mark Cameron – will migrate en masse to Strategic Initiatives and Public Liaison, where they will be joined by two evacuees from the once seemingly unassailable Muttartian fortress of Strategy: Neil Desai and Rebecca Thompson, managers of community relations and public liaison, respectively.

Speaking of Strategy – and if the most recent trends in organizational nomenclature over at PMO are any indication, that’s exactly what they’re going to be doing a lot of over the next few months – Patrick Muttart may still technically be on the PMO payroll, but his sphere of influence is shrinking by the day. In addition to Desai and Thompson, the office has also lost its one remaining communications strategist, Michael Winterburn, who, as of yesterday afternoon, seems to have caught up with the rest of his kin and joined the Olsenian army over at Strategic Communications.

Meanwhile, over at Policy, as noted in yesterday’s edition of GiornoWatch, Darrel Reid’s name no longer appears as director; he is now a (or, again, possibly ‘the’) Deputy Chief of Staff; after surfacing briefly midway down the staff list over at Strategy, his listing now appears only on the front page, which means that, for the moment at least, he doesn’t appear to have any affiliation with a particular office. Also missing from the staff list, sadly, is former administrative assistant Garnett Genuis, possessor of one of the most fortuitous names that ITQ has ever encountered.

Finally, a few cosmetic changes: the awkwardly branded Personnel, Administration and Appointments is now just Appointments, and the Senior Advisor listing has finally been stricken from the GEDSroll, months after the office itself had been vacated by its previous inhabitant, Bruce Carson.

So, is that it for this round of Giornorchestrations? ITQ has no idea, but we’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE: Previously on GiornoWatch …

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  • Paul Wells

    “Strategic Initiatives and Public Liaison.” Turns out they’re not Starbucks or Tim Horton’s, they’re beige.

  • Sisyphus
  • http://www.mikepowell.ca Mike Powell

    Sadly, you’ve inverted letters in Garnett’s last name: It’s actually (and perhaps tragically, given the possibilities) “Genuis”.

  • GarnettGenuisFan

    As much as I appreciate learning about who is moving from job A to job B. I think it would be a lot more interesting and useful if you can tell us who these people are. What backgrounds do these people have etc?

    • http://www.macleans.ca Kady O’Malley

      GGF (and really, aren’t we all?): You’ll find some info on lesser known players scattered through past editions of GiornoWatch, but for the most part, I assume that most of the people who would actually click through to read an annotated staff list probably already know Patrick Muttart or Carolyn Stewart-Olsen’s backgrounds.

      • http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

        Yea, we know Muttart and CSO, but we don’t know much about, say, Jasmine Igneski. Where did she grow up? What is her morning routine? Boxers or briefs? If she were a plant, what kind of plant would she be and why? The public has a right to know, Kady.

  • MJH

    For those of us who are not in the Ottawa bubble what is Langevinoverse and GEDS??

    • seaandthemountains

      Langevin is the building that houses the PMO and most of the more powerful elements of the PCO.

      GEDS is the government electronic phone book.

      • MJH

        Thank you. The Ottawatalk is rather confusing.

  • Anon

    I have some observations.

    First, Bruce Carson (according to a recent Globe article) was the master strategist behind the $85B flop that was the federal budget that even TheStrategist ™ can’t bring himself to support publicly. But, I’ll defer to Kady’s encyclopedic knowledge of the GiornoVerse that nobody — probably not even TheGreatGiorno himself — can match.

    Second, anytime somebody is promoted to “Director” or “Deputy something” and moved to a box where he or she has nobody reporting to him or her, that is just a face-saving way of telling them to Polievre-off. Now, in this economy, some of these “Directors” may refuse to take the hint, in which case they may have to be appointed to some Embassy somewhere or into the Senate.

    Third, I still haven’t seen any sign that the Great Muttart — whose incredible genius has been so lovingly chronicled in so many long essays, and whose future was probably doomed when he signed off first on those arts cuts and second on that disastrous fall statement — has been replaced as of yet. In other words, who will do all the focus group, polling, etc etc that is really at the core of the Harper administration? Surely not Carolyn Stewart-Olsen who has the strategic acumen of a brick hurtling through a glass window?

    My sense is that if and when we hear of the appointment of that person, we’ll know whether Harper wants to keep on chugging for the next few months, or whether he’s just looking for a way out of town and into some high paying think-tank job in the US.

  • leigh

    What about Paul Wilson, the ‘non-partisan’ appointment who’s now director of research? I’m curious about how someone from the Reform side would be considered ‘non-partisan’. Any ideas?

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