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Political Announcement
Innisfil Enterprise
May 9, 2007
By Peter Van Loan, MP, York-Simcoe
This past week, I made three announcements
on new items of legislation as Minister for
Democratic Reform. A lot more goes
into an announcement than you might imagine.
For example, on Tuesday, I introduced a Bill
in the House of Commons to clean up the
business of campaign loans - which, as we
saw in the Liberal leadership campaign, were
being used to circumvent the donation limits
($1100) under campaign finance laws. A
loophole was being exploited by wealthy
individuals who had made personal loans to
Liberal leadership candidates in excess of
$3 million. This had to be addressed.
But the origin of the Bill goes back several
months. First, I worked with Privy
Council Officials and my staff to prepare a
Memorandum to Cabinet proposing the concept.
I then presented it to a Cabinet Committee,
and succeeded in persuading them of the
merits of the idea.
After that, officials began work on a draft
piece of legislation, which was accompanied
by a further memorandum to Cabinet.
Again, this had to go through the process
again.
With Cabinet approval in hand, I had to make
the pitch to get support of the Conservative
Caucus (my fellow MP's). This was
tougher sell than you might think. The
law would affect every one of them directly.
The next step was a plan for introduction
and announcement of the proposed new law on
political loans. This needed to cover
everything from date and time, co-ordination
with the House of Commons Schedule,
location, and technical set-up.
Speeches needed to be written, along with
news releases, backgrounders, questions and
answers and talking points for my caucus
colleagues. Everything needed to be in
both languages.
We also prepared an outreach plan to
communicate with academics and others having
a special interest in the subject.
Ultimately, we did the announcement across
the river from Parliament Hill, with the
Parliament Buildings as the backdrop.
The speech went smoothly, as did the
question session with the media.
Then, about half a minute after we finished,
one of the journalists took a cell phone
call and yelled "Andre Boisclair is
resigning!". The Parti Quebecois
leader's departure almost certainly meant
Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe would
leave for Qubebc City according to the
journalists.
Nobody cared about a new loans law anymore!
There was a bigger story in town today.
That's how it works sometimes in our
business. All the best-laid plans can
amount to nothing. A British Prime
Minister was once asked what the toughest
part of his job was. "Events, my dear
friend. Events." he said.
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