Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Dept. of office memos: Guy Giorno heads for the exit

by Paul Wells on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:50pm - 9 Comments

From the Inkless Emailbox, a forwarded email from Stephen Harper’s chief of staff on his last day on the job:

From: Guy Giorno

Subject: Farewell and Thanks / Au revoir et merci

Sent: 31 Dec 2010

After exactly two and one-half wonderful years, New Year’s Eve 2010 will be my last day as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Canada. On January 1, I return to the private practice of law. Details will be announced on Tuesday.

Public service is a privilege. The opportunity to contribute to the betterment of Canada is a privilege. Yet these privileges were magnified by the chance to work for a principled, strong, ethical and patriotic leader: someone here for all the right reasons, here for Canada, here for Canadians.

Facing one of the worst global recessions in a lifetime, this Government made prudent decisions (e.g., no bank bailouts) and then introduced a sweeping, affirmative Economic Action Plan to protect the economy and steered Canada through the global economic recession. The recovery is fragile but it is real and our economy is outperforming the economies of many countries of the world. By exercising fiscal restraint and keeping taxes low, we continue to protect existing jobs and support the creation of new ones.

On the political level, we won a general election, only the eighth time in 40 elections that a governing party has increased both its seat count and its share of the popular vote. We eliminated the so-called gender gap and made inroads into communities that have not voted Conservative for decades. The party’s net gain in by-elections (plus three seats) is the strongest by-election record for an incumbent government in 110 years.

Today, our standing in the polls is stronger and higher than when I first arrived.

Credit for these achievements belong, first, to our leader and Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and, second, to the hard working men and women of the Conservative Caucus. The achievements are theirs. It was a privilege just to be along for the ride.

It was a pleasure and an honour to work with each of you and your staffs. Thank you for the opportunity to work and to serve together.

My successor, Nigel Wright, is a man of principle, vision and prodigious intellect. He is an inspired choice. And, should Mr. Ignatieff’s coalition decide to force an unnecessary and opportunistic election, Nigel will emerge as chief of staff to a majority Prime Minister.

Thanks again. It’s been great!

Guy

P.S. You can follow me on Twitter at @guygiorno.

Tags: Guy Giorno, Here's your hat, office mail, Stephen Harper

More by Paul Wells

http://twitter.com/RamaraMan @RamaraMan

Re: On the political level, we won a general election, only the eighth time in 40 elections that a governing party has increased both its seat count and its share of the popular vote. ———

So the the CPC success is defined "winning by decreasing voter turnout!" Mr. Giorno, your a sick-sick individual and Canada is better served by your return to private practice!
Margaret

LOL!!
Amateur Hour

"Facing one of the worst global recessions in a lifetime, this Government made prudent decisions (e.g., no bank bailouts) …"

NOT TRUE.
http://www.sprott.com/Docs/MarketsataGlance/11_09…

“Looking at the Canadian system more closely, all five Canadian banks are levered at an average of 31:1, which is actually the lowest leverage ratio during the three years that we reviewed. This implies that if the Canadian banks’ tangible assets were to drop by 3%, their tangible common equity would effectively be wiped out …

Acknowledging the leverage levels above, you may wonder how the Canadian banks escaped the 2008 meltdown unscathed. The answer is that they received significant assistance from the Canadian government. First, they received $65 billion in liquidity injections from the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP), whereby Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) purchased insured mortgages from Canadian banks to provide additional liquidity on the asset side of their balance sheets.

Next, the Bank of Canada provided them with an additional $45 billion in temporary liquidity facilities. Finally, a Canadian Bank (that shall remain nameless) also received assistance from the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) through the purchase of $4 billion in mortgages prior to the IMPP program, for a total government expenditure of $114 billion.

For reference, the entire tangible common equity of the Canadian Banks in 2008 was $68 billion. Can you put two and two together? The Canadian government injected a sum through mortgage purchases worth more than the entire tangible common equity of the Canadian banking system! On top of that, the Bank of Canada provided more than 50% of the tangible common equity of the system in emergency liquidity facilities. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, acknowledged this, albeit in an indirect way: “Policy-makers had to do many unpalatable things to save the economy from the financial system – a financial system that begged for mercy.”
Jan

The Conservative thumb corp is out in full force. Cats must have gotten their tongues.
Jenn_

I'm going back to private life. Follow me on Twitter as I do it! Oh, and I'll have a news conference to tell you all about it as well.

The "private life" of a celebrity, perhaps?

Inkless

It's true. I looked on Twitter and there's nobody on it but celebrities.

Inkless

I'm gonna shut down comments on this one, folks. See you in '11.
Jan

So far he has only posted one tweet, in which he tells Don Martin to pound sand. Is this symbolic of his time in Ottawa – anyone?
Holly Stick

Still just the one tweet. Boy, he writes there like a nasty rightwing troll. Another Young Jurk gone from the PMO and good riddance to him. It's time they got some grownups.