PMO Staff Altered in Attempt to Recover from Senate Scandal

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper is reported to have been shuffling several ranks of his own office in effort to rely on familiar faces in attempt of redemption from the recent Senate spending scandal and preparations towards the 2015 federal election. The changes in staffing at PMO were announced internally this week, which were confirmed by the Conservative Party and government sources to The Globe, have started to seem like shaping towards an influential Prime Minister’s Office as it trusts on former staffers to fill in several vacant positions.

The current director of political operations for the Conservative Party, Jenni Byrne, has been upgraded to the Prime Minister’s Office as a second deputy chief of staff to Mr. Harper, who will join the already deputy chief of staff to the Prime Minister, Joanne McNamara. Ms. Byrne has previously also worked as director of issues management in the PMO, while she is also credited for managing the Conservatives’ 2011 election campaign, which made her famous for her partisan style and tight message control. However, sources report, that she will be allowed to keep her volunteer position as the Conservative Party national campaign chair, which is a strong signal indicating that campaign preparations will be a priority for Mr. Harper.

On the other hand, the current director of communications for the Conservative Party, Fred DeLorey, has now been shifted to become the party’s new director of political operations, filling in the space left vacant by Ms. Byrne. Alykhan Velshi is then expected to take a new role in issues management in the Prime Minister’s Office, leaving the position of director of strategic planning for the PMO.