OTTAWA – Once again, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking for a chief of communications.
After a little more than eight months in the job, John Williamson has decided to try his hand at elected politics, vying to get the Conservative nomination in the New Brunswick seat being vacated by retiring Veterans Affairs minister Greg Thompson.
Williamson said Wednesday that he would be out of his job within “weeks,” staying only long enough to ensure a transition – with a successor who is yet to be named. The speculation at the moment is that a new director will be found within the ranks of the current PMO communications staff.
Williamson, 39, is the fourth person to hold the job in a little more than four years and his quick departure is viewed as another symptom of Harper’s ongoing difficulty with communications and the media.
It’s a problem that actually predates Harper’s time as prime minister – in opposition, there was a similar, revolving door of communications directors, coming in and out of the job at the same rate of about one a year.
In his book, Harper’s Team, former chief of staff Tom Flanagan chronicled early problems finding someone to handle communications for Harper. Flanagan wrote that Harper “wants self-effacing media people around him.”
Under Harper, PMO communications is more like a bunker as well, largely organized around protecting the government from the media and rigid control of the so-called “message” all across Ottawa.
Williamson, a former head of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, kept a low profile while in the PMO – some said too low, since it wasn’t clear at times what he did. Williamson left the public-spokesperson functions to PMO aides Dimitri Soudas or Andrew MacDougall, while people such as William Stairs (a former communications director) and Dan Robertson do behind-the-scenes strategy.
On Wednesday, Williamson said he was busy in meetings and not able to conduct an interview, but pointed instead to the comments he gave to the St. John Telegraph-Journal, where he announced his intentions to leave the PMO and run for office.
“I want to ensure that the riding has strong representation in Ottawa,” Williamson told the Telegraph-Journal.
“I know how the federal government operates and I think I can get things done here. I think I could give the citizens of New Brunswick Southwest the strong voice it deserves in our nation’s capital. Greg Thompson has big shoes to fill, but I do think my experience would lend itself to this challenge.”