Gerein: Blake Desjarlais’s hiring at Edmonton city hall was a puzzler. So is his exit after just 90 days.

Blake Desjarlais’s abrupt departure after just three months as Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack’s chief of staff is a strange turn of events

The world of politics, as I’ve learned over the years, is rife with dark humour, including an ongoing joke that senior staffers probably shouldn’t make themselves overly comfortable in any new office. Being a chief of staff or a director of communications is a tough, grinding gig at the best of times, and these are hardly the best of times. Such jobs are especially precarious in an era of social media excess and hyper-politicization where winning is everything, loyalty is paramount and each success or failure is blown out of proportion.

When things go well, people are poached to bigger stages. When they go poorly, staffers often take the hit for the elected officials they serve. Few make a career out of it.

Still, even in the context of that world, Blake Desjarlais’s abrupt departure after just three months as Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack’s chief of staff is a strange turn of events — especially since there have been no major successes or failures out of that office recently. Ninety days is barely enough time for someone to remember their parking stall or find the ideal settings on their desk chair, let alone learn the intricacies of a new job, so the sudden exit raises questions. It’s even more curious when you remember that Knack took six months to hire a full-time chief of staff, which should have been ample time to get it right.

That he eventually decided on a former NDP MP as his right hand always seemed like a risky idea, so it’s not a great look for the mayor to now have to find a replacement after such a short time. Not a good fit? As to how things soured, sources tell me there’s no scandal afoot.

There were no real performance issues, major policy disagreements or personality conflicts, but rather just a mutual realization from both Knack and Desjarlais that it wasn’t a good fit. Beyond that, it’s mostly speculation as to why it didn’t work, though I have found myself wondering if the mayor’s mixed approach to intergovernmental relations played a role. Whether intended or not, following up that campaign by hiring an NDP politician as chief of staff sent a signal that Knack expected to be in a fight, a move that came across as rather aggressive — and contradictory — from a leader who had repeatedly insisted on the need to keep partisanship away from city hall.

And indeed, I am told that provincial government officials did not react well to Desjarlais’s arrival. However, of late Knack has taken a far more diplomatic approach — publicly at least — than those previous moves might have heralded. During his May state of the city speech, he passed up a golden opportunity to criticize the province’s squeezing and downloading.

Instead, he’s praised the government’s investments in addiction recovery and expressed optimism about addressing homelessness. Even Alberta Transportation’s latest moves against municipal bike lanes have been met rather tepidly. As an Edmontonian, it’s been unusual, and even a bit fun, to watch Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas get into a bunch of public spats with the Smith government, while our mayor has appeared far more restrained in comparison.

It may not last, but if that is to be Knack’s preferred long-term approach with the province, an awareness may have set in that Desjarlais probably wasn’t the ideal chief of staff. The same could probably be said for relations with the federal government, which has moved in a more conservative direction since Prime Minister Mark Carney took charge. In that vein, some insiders suggest the former MP may still harbour political ambitions of his own, and came to realize it isn’t all that satisfying doing the grunt work to help someone else succeed.

It wouldn’t be a shock to see him as an NDP candidate in the next Alberta provincial election, provided there is sufficient alignment with Leader Naheed Nenshi. As I said, much of this is educated speculation on a peculiar chapter in Knack’s tenure. But either way, if it wasn’t going to work, Knack and Desjarlais made the smart call to part ways now, rather than let it drag out.

Dutch elm setback In recent months, cautious optimism was rising that Edmonton may have managed to stop the spread of the insidious fungus at a mere seven trees, which would have been a fantastic accomplishment considering how other jurisdictions have struggled against it. But then the city announced the discovery of two more cases. One of those is in the same general north-side area as the previous infections.

But the other is on city land in Rossdale, where no cases had been reported previously. It’s just one tree at this point and city crews are doing their best to ensure that’s as far as it goes, but it’s hard to overstate the concern of finding Dutch elm disease in the river valley. Edmontonians can help by remembering not to transport firewood into the city, and by adhering to the ban on cutting down or pruning elm trees between April 1 and Sept. 30.

Summer sucks As to Edmonton’s other major pest, it’s no surprise to hear a lot of angry chatter lately about council’s 2022 decision to scrap the city’s aerial mosquito control program in favour of attempting a heavier reliance on natural interventions such as birds, bats and dragonflies. Remember that the helicopter spraying was limited to larger water bodies mostly in outlying areas of the city, which meant it helped neighbouring municipalities as much, or more, than Edmonton. Remember also that the city continues to do ground larvicide treatments.

It sucks (literally), but sometimes we have to accept the bugs in life. You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites.

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