Confusion reigned at CIC after Kenney kept on multiculturalism

Embassy article on how CIC had to scramble to figure out the implications of Minister Kenney retaining responsibility for the multiculturalism file, including my quotes:

The Conservative government owes its current majority in part to strong support from ethnic communities in suburban Canada, and Mr. Kenney has led the party’s efforts to appeal to immigrant diasporas.

Prime Minister Harper credited Mr. Kenney for turning “small-c conservative” immigrants into “big-C conservatives” and urged United States conservatives to learn from his party’s example during a recent sit-down interview with the Wall Street Journal in New York.

“This is a huge transformation. It’s why we’ve come to office, and have stayed in office,” Mr. Harper commented, according to a report by the Canadian Press.

Andrew Griffith, a director general for citizenship and multiculturalism at Citizenship and Immigration Canada from 2007 until 2011 and now retired, said that the decision to keep Mr. Kenney on the multiculturalism file was “a political point.”

“He engaged the communities, he developed the contacts there, he recruited candidates for the party and he played a major role in the electoral strategy of the party,” said Mr. Griffith, author of the book Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism.

“It didn’t make any sense for them to switch to another minister who would have to build up the relationships. I suspect that Kenney probably didn’t want to give it up either, because it’s part of his political base.”

Even in situations where Mr. Alexander is responsible for signing off on multiculturalism decisions, Mr. Griffith said that the documents make clear that the minister for multiculturalism is responsible for the substance of those decisions.

“From a bureaucratic point of view, I don’t like it because it’s messier and I think it impacts the ability to do good policy work. But from a political point of view, I understand why the prime minister made that decision,” said Mr. Griffith.

“If I were him, I probably would have made the same decision.”

Message to current public servants: be careful what you say in emails. “Confusion reigns!” may be accurate but may also be too vivid for the public!

Confusion reigned at CIC after Kenney kept on multiculturalism | Embassy – Canadas Foreign Policy Newspaper.

Earlier blog posts and reporting: