Canada’s new ‘hands on’ heritage minister, a former cop, takes the reins

Canadian media sector, watch out. Shelly Glover’s path to cabinet included a 19-year career with the Winnipeg police, which at times involved going undercover as a sex trade worker, raiding crackhouses and investigating gangs. The Manitoba MP worked as a patrol officer and spokeswoman for the police service before entering politics. Even as she was being sworn in to cabinet by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday, she hadn’t left the police service behind. Glover remains a patrol sergeant, currently on a leave of absence. In taking on the new portfolio of the Heritage Department, the former investigator will be thorough, said Destiny Watt, Glover’s co-campaign manager for her successful 2008 and 2011 electoral campaigns. “She likes to have all the information before she’s supporting or not supporting something, so I think she’ll be very hands-on with that portfolio,” Watt said in a phone interview, adding that Glover “gives 110 per cent to everything she’s doing.” Glover, who represents the riding of Saint Boniface, Man., “spends an amazing amount of time learning and getting to know everything, every single little nook and cranny of a file,” Watt said, describing the new minister as very energetic and driven. That energy was probably useful as Glover, 46, raised five children while working as a police officer. Her husband, also a police officer, is now retired from the force and is a small business owner, Glover’s website says. Glover, an anglophone of Métis origin who learned French through an immersion program, will now be learning the language of the heritage portfolio. In her new post, she will be responsible for the CRTC and serve as the government’s link to Canada’s cultural sector, including broadcasters, media companies, producers, writers, and supporters and creators involved in Canada’s screen-based industries. "One day I'm knocking on doors and doing raids, where crack cocaine is prevalent and there is sexual exploitation going on because of the pimps, and the next day, I'm knocking on the doors of the House of Commons," Glover said a day after she was named to cabinet, describing her rise in politics to the Winnipeg Free Press. Glover was also appointed to the cabinet committee on priorities and planning, sitting with Harper's inner circle on an important committee chaired by the Prime Minister, and which approves major government policies and priorities. Tory top brass will probably like her because she can toe the party line. Mitchel Raphael, columnist and photographer for Maclean’s magazine’s Capital Diary column who has written about Glover, pointed out that she backed the party position on ending the long gun registry, calling it wasteful and inefficient, while at the same time police chiefs across Canada supported it. Glover's support of Bill C-279, an NDP private members’ bill focusing on transgender rights, for which only about a dozen other Conservative caucus members voted, shows an independent streak. The bill passed third reading in the House and had moved on to the Senate when the summer recess began. “She did a lot of advocacy and spoke out about it,” Raphael said, noting that Harper didn’t support the bill. “I think the majority of MPs would probably say, ‘She’s a mouthpiece for Stephen Harper, she’ll say her talking points,’ but I think they forget that one issue.” As a police officer, Glover conducted street outreach for sex trade workers, he said, including “hair and nails nights” intended to build trust between sex workers and the police. There, she saw that transgender people were among the most vulnerable groups in Canada, Raphael said. “She said if she did not vote in favour of this bill, she could not go home to Winnipeg and face the women she’d done all that outreach for,” he said. “When it probably comes to life and death and it comes to certain social issues and her core beliefs, she’ll put her money where her mouth is, and on other stuff, maybe those issues are part of being in the party, and you do what you have to do.” Laurie Hawn, another Conservative MP who represents Edmonton Centre, also referred to Glover's support for Bill C-279, and said she has a lot of integrity and a strong work ethic. “On difficult issues, such as Bill C-279 Transgender Rights, she was not afraid to follow her conscience and support the bill,” Hawn said in an emailed statement. “She is tough but compassionate and is very well-grounded with a great sense of humour.” Steven Fletcher, a fellow Manitoba Conservative MP who left cabinet in Monday’s shuffle, said people interacting with Glover under her new portfolio will “find someone who is open-minded and empathetic.” “Shelly’s been exposed to human tragedy and harm,” he said. “Certainly, being exposed to parts of society that are underrepresented or not represented at all, and to have that ability to keep that in mind while making public policy, can only benefit society as a whole.” Watt also brought up Glover’s empathy as a characteristic, describing her as a “caring individual, very sincere, open and honest,” and a “give-your-last-nickel” type of person. Canada’s cultural groups have begun requesting meetings with Glover, though they should expect to have to give her some time while she studies the file, Michael Hennessy, president and CEO of the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), said in a phone interview. “In the normal course of action, the minister would probably spend some time this summer getting briefed ... before she takes too many meetings,” said Hennessy, a former government affairs executive with Telus Corp., noting that the Prime Minister’s Office gives new ministers a mandate, list of priorities, and other instructions as part of their briefing packages. “The political problem is always that if you’re going to meet people , you’ve either got to be in listening mode or be very careful because you don’t want to end up having made commitments without really knowing the file.” Hennessy said the CMPA and other cultural groups will approach Glover as they would with any minister, and continue to push for issues they discussed with her predecessor, James Moore, now the industry minister. For the CMPA, those include recognizing Canada’s media production industry as driver of the economy, encouraging more investment to help promote and distribute Canadian productions, and encouraging more international co-productions. Glover could play a role in crafting the government’s long-anticipated digital economy strategy, if the government still plans to roll out a formal strategy, Hennessy said. First promised in 2009, the digital economy strategy could affect Canada’s screen-based industries through new regulations, incentives, government priorities, or funding, he said. The government’s 2011 federal budget, released in March 2011, introduced measures to help the adoption of new technologies and said it set “the stage for the release of Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy later this spring,” though no strategy was announced. Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said Glover may also face calls for the government to ease the foreign ownership restrictions for broadcast companies, as well as other broadcast issues such as pushes to regulate over-the-top, online TV. “Broadcasters will seek removal of current regulatory requirements, creator groups will seek to retain them and apply them to Internet-based providers, and the Internet providers will argue for no change,” Geist said in an email to The Wire Report Thursday. “The CRTC will find itself at the centre of the issue, but PCH won't be able to avoid it.” Geist said copyright issues will also come up during Glover’s time as heritage minister, including Canada’s ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Treaty for the Visually Impaired, and issues arising during the government's next Copyright Act review. Those could also include cultural issues, such as copyright, as part of free trade agreements being negotiated with Europe and countries within the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “I expect that reform to the Copyright Board of Canada and the Canadian collective licensing system will be at the top of the list for many stakeholders,” Geist added. Watt, Glover’s former campaign manager, said the minister will get to know her new portfolio thoroughly. “I just think she’s going to dig deep into everything that’s going on with that portfolio. She’s not going to let anything slide. She pays a lot of attention to detail, likes to know the issues front page and back,” she said, pointing to Glover’s job as parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance, where she was appointed in 2011. “She dug her heels into that and was very involved in the process for the budgets,” Watt said. “I don’t think people would have even thought she was really a rookie.” —With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

Canada’s new ‘hands on’ heritage minister, a former cop, takes the reins

Broadcast | July 19, 2013

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