Meet the new guy

And so suddenly Ray Novak is the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.

Full disclosure to be applied from this point forward: Mr. Novak and I first crossed paths in university, he as a student politician, me as a student journalist covering student politics. He ran for student council president and lost. But he seems to have done all right since then.

Here is the profile I wrote of Mr. Novak two years ago. He is the Prime Minister’s longest-serving aide, an individual who once slept in the bunk above the garage at Stornoway when Mr. Harper was leader of the opposition.

Now it is Mr. Novak to whom Mr. Harper turns at one of the most critical moments in his premiership.