Canada has a new fentanyl czar. So what is a ‘czar,’ anyways?

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OTTAWA — Tuesday’s appointment of ex-Mountie Kevin Brosseau as Canada’s first fentanyl czar — or, for that matter, ‘czar’ of any kind — brings one of America’s most contentious political monikers north of the border.

And Canadians who now find themselves asking “what the heck is a czar, anyways?” should at least take comfort in knowing most Americans aren’t totally sure either.

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Some readers may be surprised to learn that, as an official job title, “czar” is as new to the U.S. as it is to Canada, debuting just this year — brand new Trump appointees David Sacks, the crypto czar, and Tom Homan, the border czar, are the first U.S. officials in history to be formally given the title. 

There are several unanswered questions about both positions, including the scope of powers Homan will have in his new office.

Kevin Sabet, an ex-policy advisor who served under three American drug czars, told the National Post that centralizing power under a single figure can be a good way to tackle complex policy issues that touch on multiple areas.

“The idea is that the czar is someone who will keep people accountable,” said Sabet.

“He or she, ideally, is someone the president can use as a one-stop-shop, versus having to ask 10 different people about 10 different aspects of the issue.”

Sabet said that the drug czars he worked under would navigate with issues relating to border control, criminal justice, public health and federal-state relations, among other areas, on any given day.

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The general confusion over the term also played out in last year’s presidential election campaign, as the Trump campaign asserted repeatedly that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris had been named “border czar” under then-president Joe Biden, which Harris’s team denied.

Biden tapped Harris in 2021 to lead a diplomatic push to slow migration from Mexico and Central America and whether this gave her “czar” status is open to interpretation.

While there is no hard-and-fast definition of a czar, it’s a favoured term inside the beltway for senior bureaucrats with broad powers over an area of policy. Czars can take on both temporary problems, like hurricane relief, and long-term ones, like climate change and cyber security.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama, for example, appointed a slew of short-term czars to coordinate parts of his response to the Global Financial Crisis, including a bank bailout czar, car czar and big-picture economic czar.

Obama’s team of unelected mandarins ballooned to more than two dozen appointees, sparking accusations of government by czar.

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Historically a title used by Slavic monarchs like Russia’s ill-fated Czar Nicholas II, czar’s use in American politics is believed to originate with turn-of-the-century House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon. Speaker Cannon’s steamrolling style earned him the nickname “Czar Cannon”, a nod to a 40-ton cannon of the same name on display in Moscow.

The term resurfaced during the world wars to refer to the powerful executives tapped to manage different aspects of the wartime economy, such as rubber, oil and manpower.

The media’s use of the term took off in the early 1970s, when then-president Richard Nixon chose psychiatrist Jerome Jaffe to lead Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, calling Jaffe his “drug czar.”

The following decades saw all manner of media-annointed czars, including an AIDS czar, birth control czar and reading czar. These officials have held varying degrees of actual power, ranging from mere figureheads to genuine policy heavyweights.

The Washington media’s zeal for slapping the title “czar” on almost any presidential appointee led to the term headlining the 2010 edition of an annual list of banished words and phrases published by Lake Superior State University.

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“Word ‘czars’ at Lake Superior State University ‘unfriended’ 15 words and phrases,” read the accompanying press release.

Sabet added that not all czars are created equal. He noted that more powerful ones, like the Director of National Drug Control Policy, tend to have stronger spending powers.

He also said the most media-savvy czars tend to be the most effective ones.

“Public relations and the bully pulpit are key in these sorts of roles,” said Sabet. “You need to be all over the media if you want to avoid getting lost in the shuffle.”

One czar who certainly isn’t media shy is Trump border czar Tom Homan, who was a fixture on cable news before even formally stepping into the role.

Homan recently appeared on Fox News to deliver an ice-cold rebuttal to singer Selena Gomez, after she posted a video to Instagram showing herself crying over ICE deportation raids.

“It’s all for the good of this nation and we’re going to keep going,” said Homan.

“No apologies.”

National Post
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