Harper Index: Buckler, Sandra - Former lobbyist is one of Harper's top advisors

[tuvor]

Communications director maintains iron grip on who speaks, when and how.

OTTAWA, January 28, 2008: Stephen Harper's communications director Sandra Buckler broke the first rule of political communications last week by "becoming the story" and being forced to renounce misinformation she had provided to reporters about Afghan detainees. More problematically for Harper she went "off-message" and away from the strategy she has helped him craft of controlling all communications as tightly as possible from the prime minister's office and the Conservatives.

She was the main spokesperson for the Harper government when it denied, earlier this month, that it was aware Canadian Forces had suspended the transfer of prisoners to Afghan forces. Last week, she retracted earlier statements to reporters.

"I should not have said what I said to you, I misspoke, and I wanted to make sure you were aware of that," she said. "I made a mistake, what I said was wrong."

Buckler is a staunch Conservative, a long-time Party activist and one of Stephen Harper's most influential associates. Harper fired William Stairs and hired her shortly after taking over as prime minister. She has been a communications advisor to Preston Manning, Kim Campbell and Tom Long and a strategist in Conservative backrooms at both the federal and provincial level. In 1993, during Kim Campbell's brief stint as prime minister, she worked for Tom Siddon when he was defence minister.

Before coming back to Parliament Hill in 2006, she was a lobbyist who worked for....

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