Carson-gate is Canada’s Watergate?

I saw commenter Max on Macleans suggest that the uncovering of the Bruce Carson security clearance and lobbying scandal in the PMO is Canada’s equivalent of Watergate (America’s most famous political scandal after which all others after have since been named). Bruce Carson is an Ottawa insider, one of the Prime Ministers’ closest advisers in recent years according to Conservative insiders.*(see footnote) And Carson is also a former (and current) criminal, which didn’t stop him from obtaining a Top Secret security clearance in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), despite Harper’s “Tough on Crime” facade!

Yet Conservatives I talk to on Twitter about this scandal either don’t reply, or say it won’t “resonate” with voters. Are they right?

“Privately, Mr. Carson’s friends are upset that Mr. Harper has ostracized his long-time adviser, without waiting for the results of the police investigation, and has refused to frankly discuss what he knew about Mr. Carson’s past and why he felt Mr. Carson deserved a second chance.” Except the Prime Minister expects us to believe that he didn’t know about all 5 convictions over an extended time period. The Prime Minister pretends to have a ‘golly gee, I was betrayed by a friend who strayed’ demeanor. See Sir Francis’ amusing example**

Macleans provides this summary of how influential Carson was as of 2008, and how close he was to the Prime Minister, who couldn’t possibly have not known Carson was an ex-con with a history of theft and fraud, and had been ordered to get medical help for his pathological behaviour prior to his convictions:
(Note: I believe in second chances, but a TS clearance for someone who turned out to offend again, calls Harper’s judgment into question.)

Harper’s 12

In the PM’s inner circle, there’s no room for sentiment or tolerance for failure. Maclean’s looks at who’s in, who’s out, and who has real power in Ottawa.

Jan 24, 2008 | 18:07:25

If Harper conveys an intensity and capacity for anger that can be intimidating, Brodie is a more disarmingly low-key personality and an even-keeled manager. His experience allows him to bridge the party operation, which he knows intimately, and the government’s day-to-day preoccupations, which he oversees meticulously. If there’s a hallmark of Brodie’s PMO, it’s methodical, risk-adverse government. Cabinet ministers get precise instructions, although they are often given more freedom to carry them out than the impression of a highly centralized regime often suggests. It’s communicating the government’s message that is more subject to strict PMO authority. Brodie himself is never the messenger. He declined to comment for this story.
BY JOHN GEDDES

The Mechanic: Bruce Carson

Among the players in the Prime Minister’s Office, Bruce Carson’s potential was among the hardest to size up in the early days. Nearing 60 when the Tories won power, he was a decade or two older than most of the crew considered closest to Stephen Harper. He was a long-time Tory organizer, who had worked for Joe Clark back in the days of the ill-fated Charlottetown accord, although that was hardly a sparkling resumé entry in Ottawa circa 2006. Carson had not even backed Harper during the leadership race for the newly merged Conservative party in 2004, remaining a neutral party policy official through the contest. His roots were deep, sure, but it was easy to imagine him settling into a respectable but second-tier role.

Instead, he is now acknowledged as an indispensable PMO figure. Officially Harper’s legislative assistant, his true stature is better reflected by the fact that he fills in as chief of staff when Ian Brodie is away from Ottawa. (At the time this article was being written, with Brodie on vacation, Carson was running the shop.) “He’s Harper’s grey-haired sage,” according to one veteran Conservative strategist. “The PM trusts him implicitly.”* Other insiders confirm that Carson’s long experience and extensive personal contacts with old-school Tories are regarded as invaluable. But it’s not his institutional memory or seasoned perspective that have most enhanced Carson’s reputation–it’s his ability to take on tough files that demand concentrated work. “Bruce is our mechanic,” says a Harper confidant. “He can fix anything.”

Well, maybe not anything. Back in 2006, Carson was loaned to then environment minister Ron Ambrose when her handling of the government’s high-profile climate change strategy was spinning out of control. The intervention wasn’t enough to save Ambrose, who was later shuffled out of Environment to sink from sight as intergovernmental affairs minister. But Carson wasn’t blamed. Established on the file, he stuck with it to play a key behind-the-scenes role as an architect of Environment Minister John Baird’s bid last spring to succeed where Ambrose had stumbled in crafting a plausible global warming strategy.

In that role, Carson appeared on the radar screens of powerful industry lobbyists, particularly in the oil and gas sector, who are worried about how any emissions regulations could hit their bottom lines. An Ottawa consultant with Tory credentials sees Carson brokering among cabinet ministers who represent sometimes conflicting interests on the climate change issue. “In virtually all of the negotiations among [Industry Minister] Jim Prentice, [Natural Resources Minister] Gary Lunn, and Baird,” said the consultant, “Bruce has been at the table.”

Carson’s close working relationship with Prentice, the influential chairman of the cabinet’s operations committee, is crucial. When Prentice was Indian affairs minister prior to last summer’s cabinet shuffle, Carson became the key behind-the-scenes architect of a new system for settling what are called “specific” native land claims. While Indian Affairs has never cracked the top echelon of Harper priorities, the portfolio is seen as strategically key. Having taken the controversial step of scrapping Liberal prime minister Paul Martin’s multi-billion-dollar Kelowna accord, the Conservatives decided they needed at least one significant accomplishment in their relationship with native leaders to hang in the window. Carson delivered it.

Remarkably, Carson has played his mechanic’s role on files like climate change and land claims without giving up day-to-day prominence in Harper’s Parliament Hill operation. Along with Keith Beardsley, in charge of “issues management” in the PMO, Carson runs question period preparation. Not bad for a guy who not long ago looked like a relic from a previous Tory era.

**Sir Francis writes Harper’s reaction as viewed by the average Conservative:

“Golly. I had no idea my best friend, most intimate confidante, and most trusted advisor had a criminal record as long as my tibia. Geez Louise, I sure wish that someone among the hundreds of folks who surround me and who knew about this had told me.

And, you know, it really gets my goat that Bruce never mentioned, in all the daily conversations we’ve had since he left the PMO in ’08, that he had moved in with a 20-year-old call-girl and was representing her company during sit-downs with numerous senior ministries. I mean, gosh, isn’t that the sort of thing you tell a best friend and closest advisor? I really, really feel kind of embarrassed about the whole thing, I tell ya.

And I’m a bit peeved that no one from the ministries involved ever got around to telling me that my best friend and closest advisor, who had moved in with a 20-year-old call-girl, was sniffing around their ministries for quick cash on her behalf; I sorta like to know what’s going on in my own government. That’s why I call it the “Harper Government”, ‘cause I run it and know what’s going on and stuff.

But, listen friends. Seriously. I’m, like, totally shocked about this. Shocked, I tell you. And, gosh darn it, I’m gonna get to the bottom of all this. And when I do, people will pay, and pay big time. Cause we really just can’t have this kinda stuff go on. It’s just not right. And getting caught is just downright dumb.”

—
Hat tip Max