GiornoWatch Extra: "... that hath such people in it." (Part 2)

The first part of this special supersized edition of GiornoWatch: Now With Actual Confirmation can be found here. Hit the jump for Part 2.

Issues Management

Byrne, Jenni; Director; (613) 957-5567

James Kusie is no longer listed as deputy director -- now he’s a senior officer, which sounds like it should come with a uniform  - something in immaculate white, with a jaunty hat and maybe gold lariat as trimming. Jason Plotz, formerly in charge of rapid response and "ministerial liaison" is now "research", which doesn’t lend itself to a fetching uniform at all, and the regional assistants are now desks. The only newcomer so far would appear to be Matt Wolf, who used to manage parliamentary affairs for Maxime Bernier until -- The Incident. Otherwise, it looks like Issues Management has stayed pretty much intact, and I can’t help but think that somewhere, Ian Brodie is smiling. Probably in his backyard, come to think of it; it’s not like he’s dead, after all.

Personnel, Administration and Appointments

Penner, Dave; Director; (613) 957-5569

Policy

Reid, Darrel; Director; (613) 957-5558

Related Posts

Jonathan Vance pleads guilty, gets conditional discharge

Politics Insider for Mar. 31: Beverly McLachlin keeps her Hong Kong job; CPC MPs land in hot water over Trudeau comments; Doug Ford moves to keep his mandate letters secret

Pope Francis apologizes for residential school abuses

Politics Insider for April 1: First Nations delegates make progress at the Vatican; Trudeau pushes for a G19; and a Wildrose battle

Principal Secretary

Novak, Raymond; Principal Secretary; (613) 992-4211

Correspondence Unit

Speechwriting Unit

So, yeah - as previously reported here, there and everywhere, Ray Novak is now the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary, and is - I believe - the first to hold that job under the current PM, which apparently also puts him in charge of correspondence and speechwriting, which I would have thought would fit more neatly under Communication. Clearly I’m just a naif when it comes to the shipbuilding of state, because before it landed in Novak’s lap, Bunner operated out of Patrick Muttart’s office, where he sported the somewhat baffling title of "Manager of the Prime Minister’s Communications."  Also, doesn’t "correspondence analysis" sound like kind of a fun job? Do you make outrage graphs, conduct handwriting analysis to identify possible supporters and that kind of thing?

Right, Novak. Important, although I’m betting his day-to-day existence hasn’t changed that much, since as far as I can tell, he’s been doing this job for months, albeit unofficially. Still, he has an Office with a Capital O now. One cannot underestimate the power of capitalization.

Priorities, Planning and Research

Cameron, Mark; Director; (613) 957-5575

As noted earlier, this is where Mark Cameron has ended up, along with two of his staffers from Policy and Research. Interestingly, back in the P&R days, Aron Seal was listed as a finance policy advisor, but now he’s just a plain old advisor-of-all-trades. My guess is that this isn’t the final roster -- really, one advisor doesn’t seem sufficient for priorities, planning and research -- I mean, at the very least, shouldn’t they have a designated researcher? It will be interesting to check back in a few weeks to see how it has grown.

Strategy

Muttart, Patrick; Deputy Chief of Staff; (613) 957-5580

Turns out he’s a born and bred Queen’s Park Tory -- did ministerial office duty during the Harris days, was an organizer for Jim Flaherty’s leadership campaign. More recently, he worked as a consultant at Fasken Martineau - Guy Giorno’s old law firm - and during the early days of speculation, he was rumoured to be in line for a job in the Giornified Chief of Staff’s Office. So how did he end up in Muttart’s office, as a communications strategist no less? (That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way - if anyone knows, please share with the class.)

What else? We’ve covered the influx of former deputy communications directors and the addition of Lynette Corbett as director of strategy. Bob Klager is now director of strategic initiatives - which, I’m sorry, wins the award for most meaningless title I’ve seen so far today, and should qualify him for an honourary spot over at the Office of Stuff and Things - Rebecca Thompson is now manager of strategy - which runs a close second - and Gemma Collins is now working for Ray Novak. Other than that, the empire remains largely as it was before world turned upside down.