Ministers, their staff and individual MPs often find it almost impossible to get PMO to move away from a position or talking point that they have adopted. The micro-management style worked initially because in 2006 most staff and ministers were new at what they were doing. Micro-management and message control also worked because of the minority situation the government found itself in. Majority rule has changed that dynamic. All in all, there are Interesting times ahead if you sit on the backbenches of the government side.

I see the opposition parties have finally taken issue with the government for their heavy promotion of the War of 1812 during Olympic television coverage. The question is not the ad itself; the real issue is whether or not the Olympics are an appropriate venue for this type of saturation advertising? A simple ad highlighting the accomplishments of former Canadian Olympic greats would have been more appropriate.

OTTAWA - The prime minister's office is praising the work of a senior RCMP officer who was recently disciplined for workplace bullying inside of Steph...

Control from the backrooms was always there, but never to the extent that it is now. Until the present generation of MPs, especially in the Conservative caucus, stand up to PMO (and other MPs to their respective leader's offices), not much will happen to improve their lot or that of MPs in general.

There's trouble brewing in the Tory caucus over a government decision to continue funding the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a gr...

TORONTO - Dimitri Soudas, a former spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is joining the Canadian Olympic Committee as its executive director of...

Jeremy Hunt, the young man often seen at Harper's side, is the subject of a small feature in the October issue of Ottawa Life magazine. The article d...

OTTAWA - Despite Conservative assertions to the contrary, a directive did go out to some civil servants last fall ordering them to use the term "Harpe...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has named columnist Angelo Persichilli as his new director of communications. Persichilli start...

THE CANADIAN PRESS -- OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper's own department has repeatedly broken the government's tough rules for hospitality spend...