John first became involved in public policy issues at the University of Guelph, where he served as the student council's vice-president, operations and oversaw a $1 million budget. He began his career in 1980 as a research assistant to a Member of Parliament in Ottawa, and moved to Saskatchewan in 1982 to work as chief of staff to the Minister of Transportation.
John was promoted to work for the Premier, first as his chief of staff for the agriculture portfolio, and then as his assistant principal secretary. He was later promoted to principal secretary.
John was involved in every facet of government as the Premier's representative, including numerous negotiations among governments, businesses and other third parties. His primary responsibilities included management of various inputs to the cabinet process, liaising between the premier's office and other levels of government and working with interest groups. He oversaw the preparation and implementation of communications plans, coordinated various regulatory, policy and program inputs to the decision-making process and managed the communications rollout process. In 1992, he was associated with a business management consulting company and worked on numerous economic development projects.
In 1995, John became chief of staff to Ontario's Minister of Education. Two years later, he joined the Premier's office as director of caucus relations. He then became director of issues management and tour and was promoted in 1999 to the position of principal secretary to former Premier Mike Harris. In this role, John was responsible for the day-to-day management of the entire Premier's office, with added responsibilities for high-level stakeholder relations and short- and medium-term key file management.
John is also a veteran campaign manager, having run election campaigns for current Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and for Whitby Ajax MPP Christine Elliott. John has also played an integral role on provincial campaign teams in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where he was a senior campaign strategist for now-Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Vic Toews.
This tremendous wealth of experience in every component of government operations allows John to offer value-added strategic thinking, a unique outlook to problem solving and issues management, and a tremendous ability to bring people to the table to reach winning solutions for all the players. His reputation for sound management, discretion and a calm, but determined style no matter what the crisis makes him a valued asset to our professional team.
