Leaving PMO: An exit interview

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WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK, I’m your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey with Zi-Ann Lum. Today, we check in with a senior PMO player who’s bowing out after a decade and a half on the Hill. Also, a case study in snarled supply chains that’ll leave your head spinning.

Driving the Day

HOW TO MANAGE CABINET —MARCI SURKES is leaving the Hill after 15 years and a long list of bold-faced bosses. She worked for former Liberal MP UJJAL DOSANJH and party leaders MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, BOB RAE and JUSTIN TRUDEAU.

That was in opposition. When the Liberals won power, Surkes was chief of staff to RALPH GOODALE before eventually shifting to the PMO in early 2020.

She ran point on policy and Cabinet affairs during the pandemic — “an unending and virtually impossible-to-wrap-your-mind-around volume” of work — all from home with small kids underfoot.

The job, which the Hill Times once described as PMO air traffic controller, involved carefully crafting Cabinet agendas, briefing Cabinet committee chairs on what was coming down the pipe, and juggling dozens of policy files in an effort to deliver on mandate letters.

These days, Surkes is untangling herself from a complex web of files and org charts, all of which is now in the hands of new policy chief JOHN BRODHEAD.

As she prepared for life outside of the PMO, Surkes took a call with Playbook — an exit interview from the halls of power.

Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

How many Cabinet meetings have you attended?

It would be tough to count, but I don’t think I’ve missed any. I think I’ve attended every Cabinet meeting since January 2020.

What will you remember most about being in the Cabinet room?

I have observed, witnessed and supported Cabinets of ministers who, through a time of great uncertainty, have come together in that forum to attempt to deliberate in the best interests of Canadians time and time again, on a wide array of issues no one anticipated — and was certainly not the mandate expected.

Getting to watch it up close and unfolding in real time, in a way most Canadians never get to peek behind the curtain, I can certainly give the assurance the intent was always good and right. And certainly when a policy needed to be changed, the record shows the government didn’t hesitate to shift as needed.

A major criticism of the Trudeau government, and the Harper era before it, has been that prime ministers run the show. Ministers just follow orders. What did you observe at the Cabinet table?

One of my favorite Ralph Goodale mantras is, “Cabinet is Cabinet.” So I’ll be very limited in what I will say.

My experience is that this is very much a team endeavor. Ministers are empowered, and are regularly called upon, to bring forward their best advice, and to have that advice go through vigorous and rigorous scrutiny.

What is the most underappreciated part of the Cabinet process?

The Cabinet committee system is designed to be both a facilitator of ministers to come forward with plans, as well as a check on ministers who are coming forward with plans to ensure quality control before a final decision is taken by Cabinet. Cabinet committees are very much the gatekeepers for every decision that the government takes. They are a really fundamental part of the whole process.

What’s the toughest part of the job?

One must be competent and have working knowledge of at least some aspect of virtually every area of policy the federal government touches upon, or be able to learn it fairly quickly. So I would say the hardest part of this job is really the sheer volume of it.

Layered upon that is what the public expectations are in terms of the mandate on which the government was elected, but also all sorts of other timelines that are imposed by Parliament, the courts, other orders of government.

On any given day, there are competing pressures for what’s going to be accomplished and when — and those timelines are always in flux and always shrinking.

I cannot overstate how complicating Covid has been for everyone, and certainly, in my particular case, working on the largest, the most considerable federal budgets as an example, cramming two years worth of budgetary cycle into a single budget last spring and doing that virtually — sometimes in person, sometimes at home.

What’s normally a very heavy paper-driven process of binders upon binders of funding decisions that need to be carefully considered — having to do that without the ability to poke your head down the hall and speak to a policy adviser who knows that file inside out.

BARE SHELVES — The weekend bun fight on Twitter was all about grocery store shelves — and who could find the most or least stock in a nearby store.

Tory MP MELISSA LANTSMAN tweeted a photo of bare shelves along with a petition to reverse a federal vaccine mandate for truckers. Turns out the stock photo was shot in the United Kingdom, though thousands have signed that petition — and a convoy of angry (unvaxxed) truckers is barreling toward Ottawa.

Party leader ERIN O’TOOLE refused to take a position on the mandate on Monday.

On the other side of the fight, Liberal comms guy ALEX WELLSTEAD tweeted a photo of a plentiful Ottawa supermarket, mocking the Tories for raising the alarm.

Alberta Premier JASON KENNEYgot in on the action. So did ANDREW SCHEER, who blamed the trucker vaxx mandate for empty stores and called Trudeau “the biggest threat to freedom in Canada.” MP DEAN ALLISON saw things Scheer’s way.

There was so, so much more.

COREY HOGAN, an Alberta strategic comms expert (and Playbook prognosticator) brought sanity to the debate, such as it was:

“I’m pretty confused by the cartoonishly extreme positions everybody is taking on the state of grocery shelves. What’s the point? We all shop,” he tweeted. “It can be true that a) more things are out of stock than usual, including some important things; and b) stores are very far from empty.”

In sum: Some Canadians are playing politics with empty shelves, but many aren’t making it up when they snap grim photos at their local supermarket.

SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTIONS — Playbook called up LARRY DAVIDSON, the president of North American Produce Buyers — a top importer of grapes and stone fruit to Canadian grocers. We asked him to explain what people really are seeing when they go shopping.

— The hard truth: “It’s a disaster. I’m not one to say the sky is falling. I think people tend to want to glorify things for the sake of readers or viewership or just to panic the public. But this particular time, it’s legitimately a fiasco.”

Davidson clarified that he doesn’t fill all the shelves in all the aisles. Fruit is his business. But he explained exactly why shoppers may not be able to find grapes the next time they want them — and why they might be more expensive.

— The unsupplied chain: Every pinch point in the machine is choked, he says.

Typically, Peruvian grapes reach produce sections 10-14 days after they leave South America. But in recent years, major shipping lines have stopped directly serving North American markets — and now use Caribbean ports as midway points. There aren’t enough boats to load all the grapes at those ports. So the fruit, Davidson says, can now sit around for weeks. That alone leads to empty shelves in Canada.

But the grape business is as complex as any global supply chain. Davidson pointed to labor shortages at the warehouses that store grapes, and truck shortages when they finally land at North American ports. (Davidson tracked a large shipment of grapes to a terminal near Philadelphia. A single truck picked up one load, leaving 36 others in limbo.)

Davidson has opinions about why all of this is happening: profit-hungry shipping giants, justifiable labor unrest as workers fight for better wages, trucker vaccine mandates and Omicron-fueled labor shortages. All of those are debatable, but it all adds up to one thing: a mess of supply chains with few easy fixes.

— The cost of living: Davidson says his business tends to sustain itself in inflationary periods — but not because fruit is any less expensive.

“People do have to keep eating, and produce is still an affordable luxury. So in difficult times, people will tend to pay up for produce or pay for produce and make sacrifices elsewhere, but they’re going to find that for sure their produce bill is going to be higher than what they typically were used to when they actually paid attention to what they were paying.”

ASK US ANYTHING

What are you hearing that you need Playbook to know? Send it all our way.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

— When Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU isn’t ensconced in “private meetings,” he’ll continue to attend his virtual Cabinet retreat. That starts at 10:30 a.m.

— Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND‘s itinerary is virtually identical to the boss’s.

— Former finance minister BILL MORNEAU returns to the public eye today, joining a Clean Prosperity webinar at 12 p.m. Eastern. The question: Can Canada reach its climate goals?

Other panelists include ex-Liberal turned Suncor Chief Sustainability Officer MP MARTHA HALL FINDLAY, Capital Power Senior Vice President KATE CHISHOLM and former deputy cabinet secretary MATTHEW MENDELSOHN of deliverology fame.

— Parliamentary Budget Officer YVES GIROUX will release a report on the “Estimated Cost of Cleaning Canada’s Orphan Oil and Gas Wells.”

HOUSE BUSINESS

— A quartet of House subcommittees organize themselves today: industry and technology; national safety and public security; status of women; and agriculture and agri-food.

AROUND THE HILL

NEW DAIS FOR DIAS — Ontario Premier DOUG FORD’s new council on U.S. Trade and Industry Competitiveness has recruited 10 heavy hitters — three from the auto industry alone — to its team chaired by Unifor National President JERRY DIAS.

The mission: Take the province’s case to the powerful corridors of Washington.

The province announced yesterday that the council’s hive mind will include Canadian American Business Council CEO SCOTTY GREENWOOD, Business Council of Canada President & CEO GOLDY HYDER, Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association CEO FLAVIO VOLPE, ex-IPEX management exec VESO SOBOT, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association President & CEO BRIAN KINGSTON, Global Automakers of Canada President DAVID ADAMS, Teamsters Local Union 938 President CRAIG MCINNES, Canadian Steel Producers Association President & CEO CATHERINE COBDEN, Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers exec GEORGE GILVESY, and former natural resources and forestry assistant deputy minister MICHAEL WILLICK.

— Eye spy: A Zoom screengrab of tiled faces of the council’s first meeting Monday included Ontario Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Minister VIC FEDELI, his deputy GILES GHERSON, Dallas-based Ontario Agent General JAG BADWAL and Newforum President RON ROSS. Shout out to “Jerry’s iPad.”

PLAYBOOKERS

Birthdays: HBD to Tory MP SCOTT REID, 58 today. … YASIR NAQVI celebrates his 49th. One of Naqvi’s predecessors as Ottawa Centre MP, the late PAUL DEWAR, would have turned 59 today. … One of Dewar’s former NDP caucus mates, MARIE-CLAUDE MORIN, is 37. … Science journalist BOB MCDONALD is 70.

Spotted: JOE BIDEN‘s facial expressions. … CARLA QUALTROUGH, minister of disability inclusion, calling out the Sex and the City reboot. … NANCY EVANS, comms exec at the Smith School of Business, explaining the allure of Wordle. … DAVID AKIN, cottage-hunting in Nova Scotia.

Movers and shakers: Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON is hiring a new media guard dog (translation: Wilkinson’s chief of staff, CLAIRE SEABORN, is hiring a press secretary).

SYDNEY GRAD is now an associate at McMillan Vantage. JONATHAN MOSERjoins Rubicon Strategy as a Calgary-based ESG lead. … Public sector innovation guru KELLY HUTCHINSON starts at Compass Rose.

PMO prairies and northern adviser AYESHA CHUGHTAIdoes a victory lap after news of Nunavut’s child care deal.

From the tenders: Canada’s embassy compound in Beijing needs a refurbished children’s playground, all part of a commitment to “provide comparable standards of living to what can be found in Canada when possible.” … The embassy in Hungary is getting new carpeting and a fresh coat of paint (the colors: latex eggshell and blue eggshell). … The embassy chancery in Senegal is getting security upgrades, including a new perimeter fence.

Ethics files: NDP health critic DON DAVIES disclosed shares in vaxx manufacturer Johnson & Johnson. … Liberal MP BOBBY MORRISSEY‘s most recent filing reminds us all that he owns a cranberry farm in Tignish, Prince Edward Island.

Media mentions: The Globe and Mail is hiring an interactive editor. … Former Canadian Press editor JODY WHITE is headed for Edelman. … ZoomerMedia bought up BlogTO.

PROZONE

If you are a subscriber, catch ANDY BLATCHFORD’S Pro Canada PM newsletter: Frontline experts brief FINA on urgent housing needs.

In other news for Pros:

— Trudeau: Canadians in Ukraine staying put — for now.
— ‘Big shift': Biden moves to rewrite the rules on climate threat.
— Kerry touts natural gas for energy transition — with a catch.
— Microsoft heads for second big EU showdown — this time over gaming.
— Capitol Police examines backgrounds, social media feeds of some who meet with lawmakers.

MEDIA ROOM

— The Toronto Star’s ROBERT BENZIE scoops the competition on the army of DALTON MCGUINTY and KATHLEEN WYNNE-era political operatives who will serve key roles on STEVEN DEL DUCA‘s campaign team.

Some of those names: KATE GRAHAM, SUMI SHAN, CHRISTINE ALLENBY, JACKIE CHOQUETTE, DAVID GENE, LINDSAY MASKELL, BOB LOPINSKI, BECKIE CODD-DOWNEY, DAN MOULTON, OMAR KHAN, JONATHAN ESPIE, NAJVA AMIN, CHARISSA MCQUAIG, MILTON CHAN, GABE SEKALY, RUBY LATIF, CHRISTINE BOME, MEGHAN LAUBER, KAREN ROSEN, ASIF HOSSAIN, TIM SMITHEMAN.

— From The Narwhal’s FATIMA SYED: “Doug Ford vowed savings from canceling cap-and-trade. Now, Ontario faces two lawsuits.”

— Also from Syed: A new episode of The Backbench pod on “the NDP’s progressive struggles.” Guests include MP LORI IDLOUT, former MP PEGGY NASH and former candidate DES BISSONNETTE.

— Pollster NIK NANOS and researcher BRENDAN FRANK explain in Maclean’s why Canada’s climate ambitions will depend on the way our leaders behave and the examples they set.

— POLITICO’s National Security Daily newsletter asks the question of the day in Washington: Should the U.S. rattle Putin’s cage?

— It’s not all hashtag activism. Global News reports that Canada is considering firearms and ammunition shipments to Ukraine amid heightened tensions with Russia.

TRIVIA

Monday’s answer: Conservative MP MELISSA LANTSMAN told ELLIN BESSNER of The Canadian Jewish News: “I’m a little bit less rubber-chicken dinner and a little bit more giving out packages of chicken to those who need it.”

Props to BRAM ABRAMSON, LEIGH LAMPERT, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, SHEILA GERVAIS and BOB GORDON.

Tuesday’s question: This rookie MP previously served as a city councilor in London, Ont. For bonus marks, what issue does she say inspired her jump to federal politics?

Send your answers to [email protected]

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