PM, public servants at odds over policy

Bureaucrats, diplomats in foreign service resistant to changes, Harper says
on tape
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau

Toronto Star, June 25, 2007

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he is being under¬mined by public
servants who are uncomfortable with the Conserva¬tive government’s
aggressive ap¬proach to foreign policy matters.

The Star has obtained recordings of a June 15 closed-door roundtable with
Toronto-based ethnic media in which Harper complains at length about
reluctant bureaucrats and diplomats responsible for drafting and defending
Canadian policies abroad.

"What is not acceptable, and it does happen on occasion, is for a public
servant to say, `That may be the position of the elected guys, but that’s
not the position of the government,” Harper said in the meeting, held at a
hotel near the To¬ronto airport.

The comments, coming 17 months after the Tories were elect¬ed, suggest
Harper continues to find resistance from bureaucrats to his policy agenda.

"Every government in every coun¬try – all the leaders I’ve talked to –
complain to me that their foreign service wants to do what (it) be¬lieves is
foreign policy, not what the government-of-the-day’s foreign policy is. It’s
a universal problem."

The head of the union representing Canada’s foreign service said he was
"shocked" after hearing the Prime Minister’s com¬plaint, but said there have
been no formal complaints filed against its members.

"If this is true we’d like to know pore about it," said Ron Cochrane,
executive director of the Profes¬sional Association of Foreign Service
Officers.

A spokesperson for Kevin Lynch, the clerk of the Privy Council and head of
the public service, declined to comment, without asking about the substance
of Harper’s comments.

The Prime Minister’s comments were a response to questions about his 2006
decision to recognize the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in
Turkey in 1915 as genocide. The move was a significant departure from the
position of successive Canadian governments and so angered the Turkish
government that it briefly recalled its ambassador.

The row made international headlines, with Turkey pulling out of a May 2006
joint military exercise in protest and an adviser to the Turkish prime
minister complaining to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in an Ottawa
meeting. And this April, the Turkish foreign ministry warned Harper against
Canada’s continued recognition of the
genocide.

"Repeating these claims annually will not help in normalizing
Tur¬key-Armenia relations and will harm Turkish-Canadian bilateral relations
as well," Ankara advised Ottawa in a message sent through official
diplomatic channels, ac¬cording to the Turkish Daily News.

The row provides one of the best examples of the waves that origi¬nate in
the Prime Minister’s Office and ripple through government. Other flare-ups
include:

*A decision by bureaucrats to sponsor a November 2006 confer¬ence on Turkey,
featuring a lecture by a University of Massachusetts¬-Amherst professor,
Guenter Lewy, who has referred to the Armenian slaughter as a "disputed
genocide."

An Oct. 23, 2006 letter from the Armenian National Committee of Canada to
MacKay asks if the De¬partment of Foreign Affairs would even consider doing
the same if the conference was for Holocaust deni¬ers.

Just days before the conference was to go ahead, the government pulled its
sponsorship of the event and senior Tories backed out of promises to attend.

*Comments by Canada’s ambas¬sador to Turkey from April weigh¬ing in on the
dispute between Otta¬wa and Ankara. In comments to Turkish daily Zaman, Yves
Brodeur suggested Turkey has a simple pub¬lic relations problem.

"It’s about influence, it is about making sure that they have enough
knowledge to make a decision that makes sense, and it is about talking to
them and telling them (Turkey’s) side of the story. In this case I be¬lieve
that Turkey started much too late," Brodeur said.

On April 20, 2007, the Prime Min¬ister’s office was preparing to issue a
statement recognizing the 92nd anniversary of the genocide. A draft
statement from bureaucrats, which the Armenian National Committee later
described as watered down, landed in the hands of the commit¬tee at 9 p.m.

The statement referred to the 1915 slaughter as an event that "has been
called the first genocide of the 20th century," and suggested the deaths may
have been linked to World War I fighting.

Upon appeal to the Prime Min¬ister’s Office, the wording of bu¬reaucrats was
changed and a more forceful statement was released to the public.

At the June 15 roundtable, Harper likened the difficulty he has had shifting
Canada’s foreign policy to turning a massive ship, saying it takes great
force and requires time.

"Canada’s recognition of the Ar¬menian genocide, frankly, was a major change
in policy for the for¬eign service of Canada, not an easy one to
understand," he confided. "It has been difficult for some people."

Harper added that it is difficult for bureaucrats to defend one party’s
policies for more than a decade and then immediately adapt to a new party’s
policies.

"That’s difficult for them because they tend to believe in what they’ve been
doing," he said.

"All I can say is this: The way we overcome this is to provide very strong
direction."