© unknownDefence Minister Peter MacKay
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office was so seized with controlling public opinion of Canada's shooting war in southern Afghanistan that even Defence Minister Peter MacKay wasn't always in the loop, says a new book about the conflict.
The Savage War, by Canadian Press defence writer and Afghanistan correspondent Murray Brewster, paints a portrait of a PMO keen to preserve its tenuous grip on minority power and desperate to control the message amid dwindling public support for the war.
MacKay, who took over Defence from Gordon O'Connor in August 2007, was blindsided by the Harper government's decision later that year to set up a blue-ribbon panel to review the mission headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, Brewster writes.
"It wasn't discussed with the broader cabinet, no," the minister says in the interview. "I didn't know all of the specifics."
Jack Layton knew even less. In interviews before his death earlier this year, the late NDP leader confides to Brewster that Harper never once tried to engage him in an in-depth discussion about Canada's deepening involvement in a deadly counterinsurgency effort.