Power

On March 2, I wrote that it is never a good sign when public servants pop into public view. Without hazarding a direct guess about the fate of Michael Wernick, I wondered, based on the experience of fourth-wall-breaking senior Ontario bureaucrat Steve Orsini, if things would go well. They did not. 

Wernick recently announced his early retirement because his role in shoring up the Trudeau Liberals in the SNC-L affair cost him the trust of the Conservative caucus.

It says something that bureaucrats, the non-political players in government, so cleave to principle and trust that they resign when they feel either has been compromised. Used to be only politicians needed to do that.

On the other side of the disappearing divide between the political and public servant role in government is the most principled politician in the world right now: a woman standing up to hate, xenophobia and easy access to automatic weapons.  

Obviously I'm worried about her, too.

What You Can't See

I celebrated the first anniversary of my job at the Ministry of Energy Etc. by attending something called the Fortis Energy Exchange.

Like oxygen, people care about electricity only when it's not there. This absence of interest enables huge energy sector companies - like Fortis - to be completely obscure.  

The event was fully paid for by Fortis, set in a swanky venue with very nice food and fine swag at the table for participants who had to be invited to attend, but otherwise paid nothing for the pleasure. Every big name in the business and people from all over North America and the Caribbean were there. Panels covered weighty topics and the gentleman in the photo above, Thomas Kuhn, spoke for the best part of an hour about the energy sector of the future.

I'd been asked by my boss to attend but wasn't very clear on what, exactly, the Fortis Energy Exchange was. So I asked the people at the table with me - two guys named Bill, one from Winnipeg and one from Montreal, and a woman named Christine from up north who worked with a First Nations partnership - if they knew what it was about. They did not.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen