Too much control?

Article taken from CBC.ca

VIEWPOINT

Henry Champ

Mr. Doer goes to Washington

Last Updated: Friday, September 4, 2009 | 2:44 PM ET Comments8Recommend19

By Henry Champ, special to CBC News

Upon hearing that former Manitoba premier Gary Doer will be the next Canadian ambassador to the United States, Fen Hampson of Carleton University's School of International Affairs told the Ottawa Citizen: "Doer has a good personal relationship with the prime minister and Americans will know he's someone who can pick up the phone and call the prime minister."

Hampson has at least part of the equation right. Americans like to do business with ambassadors who have the ear of their leaders.

But the reality is that it's been a long time since Americans have felt the Canadian embassy is the place to go to reach Canada's prime minister.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former Manitoba premier Gary Doer, Canada's new ambassador to Washington, on the day of his appointment. (Canadian Press)

This is not to question whether Gary Doer is the man for the job.

America's political elite likes dealing with its counterparts. They like doing business with politicians.

They especially like those who have a history at the ballot box and who know what it takes to be successful.

Three times a winner as Manitoba premier will get Doer a tonne of respect in the American capital.

What's more, Doer's Rolodex has probably more American names in it than almost any other Canadian politician.

He's been active on the border issues, particularly with his efforts to create enhanced driver's licences. He's on first name basis with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after joining the governor's Western Initiative on Climate Change, the only Canadian to do so. And he established a Manitoba office in Washington. In fact, I've often seen him in the company of top congressional figures. He looks right at home.

Doer is a schmoozer. He never saw a crowd he didn't like.

The shacklers

However, there is one crowd he is not going to like. The bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs in Ottawa and the public relations folks in the Prime Minister's Office.

As Stephen Lewis, who served successfully as Brian Mulroney's ambassador to the United Nations told the Globe and Mail recently:

"It's a bit of a shock when you get into the role and realize that you're much more shackled.

"Foreign Affairs dictates the content of what you say and do in a significant measure. They can write the speeches and insist you deliver them, and they make sure that the talking points on your policy briefs are adhered to.

"You're sort of unprepared for it and I think I learned over time you shouldn't be constrained by it."

It's hard for me to imagine Stephen Lewis being "constrained" by very much. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during some of his conversations with the Ottawa mandarins and public relations folks.

Mulroney had a foreign policy agenda he wanted put forward and he was generally happy to deal directly through his UN ambassador. Ottawa's bureaucrats didn't interfere.

It was the same tone with Allan Gottlieb, a Trudeau appointee, who had a long run (1981-89) as the ambassador to Washington.

Mulroney kept him on because he felt he needed Gottlieb and his huge array of social contacts during the delicate free trade talks. Gottlieb had a pretty free rein and the prime minister's ear.

Rebuked

Since then, however, Canadian prime ministers have been content to allow some of the other power centres in Ottawa to whittle away at the Washington embassy.

The embassy once had the finest set of contacts in the American capital and Canadian embassy staffers covered Capitol Hill like dust.

Every committee meeting that remotely involved Canada had a staff person present taking notes and schmoozing the members before and after the hearing.

Regular visits were made to member's offices. No celebration, no event went uncovered.

But then the embassy official who headed this operation was seen by some in then prime minister Paul Martin's office as trying to be too much the diplomat: he was better known than the ambassador.

So he went back to Ottawa, somewhat rebuked, and the Capitol Hill effort waned.

The PM's ear

One of the more successful of Canada's recent ambassadors to the U.S., I would argue, was Frank McKenna, like Doer a former premier.

A Liberal, McKenna nonetheless forged a solid relationship with the George W. Bush White House in his short time as ambassador, partly because he had been close to the president's father. Both McKenna and the former president, George H.W. Bush, had been on the board of the powerful Carlyle Group investment firm.

McKenna was a frequent visitor to the White House, more often than previous ambassadors. But his time in Washington was one of frequent bickering with Ottawa insiders.

McKenna was a much sought after dinner speaker. He made a speech in Canada once in which he called the American government "dysfunctional" and was highly critical of Congress. He praised the Canadian parliamentary system as more "efficient."

Official Ottawa choked on the headlines, but many American politicians thought he had it about right.

Of course it is not just the ambassadors who face continual second-guessing. The prime minister's office recently hired two former White House press secretaries to do the kind of prep work and background studies normally done by the embassy.

This is the situation Gary Doer is walking into.

Now, I'm one who believes Prime Minister Harper should take every advantage of the American media to sell Canada's case. But the recent hiring of former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer to arrange interviews for Harper while he was on his latest trip here is over the top.

There is a large press office in the Canadian embassy here that is more than capable of arranging those interviews. Getting on Fox news and CNN, or being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, is not magic.

There is no question a prime minister must be served. It is, after all, his foreign policy and his duly elected government.

But as Doer measures the curtains for his new office, he needs to be aware that recent history does not bode well for what Prof. Hampson calls having the prime minister's ear.