Revolving Door Between Government, Corporations and Diplomatic Postings
A serious problem facing the cartel parties which form government is the revolving door through which individuals can pass back and forth from the House of Commons to corporations and now, increasingly, diplomatic posts. The more they try to overcome the lack of confidence of Canadians in the electoral system and present it and the institutions as democratic, credible, and legitimate, the revolving door phenomenon defeats their purpose.
The Toronto--St. Paul's Member of Parliament, until her resignation in January, was Liberal Carolyn Bennett. Whether it is true or not, it has been made to appear that the timing of her resignation and consequent appointment as ambassador to Denmark was calculated to create a vacant seat for another Liberal that the Liberal Party wanted in the House before the next election.
Bennett had announced in July 2023 that she would not run in the 2025 federal election but would serve out her term until then. She finally resigned on January 16 and on January 17 she got a diplomatic appointment. (Treasury Board in 2020 noted that an average pension for an MP was $69,842). As ambassador, on top of her MP pension, Bennett will receive a salary of between $244,300 and $287,400.
Regarding the matter of diplomatic appointments, according to the Canadian Ambassadors Alumni Association, an ambassador is "the most senior accredited diplomat [...] sent abroad to represent the spectrum of Canadian interests." Its website explains that while the majority of foreign mission heads are career diplomats appointed by order-in-council, "on occasion the Government of Canada will appoint exceptional individuals to represent Canada's interests abroad."
Former Canadian ambassador to China (2012-2016) Guy Saint-Jacques told the Hill Times that Bennett's appointment represents "an unfortunate trend." "It's clear that it is a process used by the Prime Minister to free up ridings for people that he likes," he said.
Previously, Trudeau appointed his Minister of Immigration John McCallum to serve as ambassador to China and his vacated Markham--Thornhill seat was taken by former political staffer Mary Ng who had served as Trudeau's Director of Appointments. In 2019 Trudeau appointed Dominic Barton, former global managing director for McKinsey and Company until 2018 and from 2018 to 2019 Chairman of Teck Resources Ltd., as Canadian ambassador to the People's Republic of China. This is the fourth such appointment by Trudeau and it sets a new record for a government's use of the diplomatic service for patronage.
In the case of the Harper Conservatives, one of the most questionable patronage handouts was the appointment of Bruno Saccomani, head of Harper's security detail, as Ambassador to Jordan (also responsible for Iraq) in 2013.
The Liberal candidate in the current Toronto--St. Paul's by-election, Leslie Church, is also part of the revolving door phenomenon which Canadians do not like.
Church studied at the London School of Economics, specializing in "international political economy and global economic governance" and obtained her law degree at the University of Toronto. She practiced law at Torys LLP in Toronto.
In 2006 she worked as Director of Communications for Michael Ignatieff's Liberal leadership campaign. From 2008 to 2011 she worked for him as a staff member of the Office of the Opposition leader. (Ignatieff himself was parachuted into the riding of Etobicoke Lakeshore by forcing the removal of the much respected Liberal MP Jean Augustine). In June 2012, after the May 2011 federal election and Ignatieff's resignation, Church landed a three-year job with Google Canada as Head of Communications and Public Affairs.
When the Liberals won the 2015 election she moved back into government, serving as Chief of Staff for the Minister of Canadian Heritage, then for the Minister of Women and Gender Equality, and then for the Minister of Public Service and Procurement. Her name has been brought forward on several occasions in parliamentary committee hearings to mock the "accountability" and "conflict of interest" laws which are supposed to prevent individuals going back and forth between government and corporate positions, particularly when she went from working for Google to serving as Chief of Staff in the Ministry of Canadian Heritage at a time the ministry was working on regulations and legislation that would impact Google.
Since 2021, Church has worked in the Office of Deputy Prime Minister Freeland, first as Director of Policy and then as Chief of Staff.
The sanitized campaign biography leaves out these details and says only that she has "held executive roles in one of the world's most prominent technology companies, practiced law at a leading Toronto law firm and served at the most senior levels of government."
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 38 - June 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54385.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca