How we’ll know if Jason Kenney is future leader or future kingmaker
Minister says he never gives party leadership even a passing thought
Every Wednesday morning, when Conservative MPs file into the Reading Room on Parliament Hill for their caucus meeting, they put their governmentissued BlackBerrys in a cubbyhole placed at the entrance for that purpose.
This is to keep them from leaking to journalists, which, sadly, is mostly effective, but it also stops them from idly reading news stories when they are supposed to be listening to the party bosses.
So on Wednesday, when Employment Minister Jason Kenney picked up his phone, left the room and walked through the gauntlet of waiting reporters, he had no way of knowing that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had just gone off his talking points over income splitting, a big 2011 campaign promise.
At a posh post- budget breakfast at the Westin Hotel, Flaherty answered a question from CBC’s Amanda Lang that he would have been wiser to dodge.
“I think income splitting needs a long, hard analytical look,” Flaherty said. “I’m not sure that, overall, it benefits our society.”
A tricky reporter, having read that on her phone, stopped Kenney as he left caucus: “Mr.
Kenney is the standard bearer for … social Conservatives, which puts him in a delicate position in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa.
Kenney, just a quick question, are you looking forward to the government introducing income splitting after the budget is balanced?”
Kenney replied: “Yeah, it was in our platform, absolutely.”
That difference of opinion between Kenney and Flaherty was like triple espresso for us short- attention- span types in the press gallery, and for the rest of the week, we had a story to chase.
Everybody noticed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper benched Flaherty in the House the next day, and we all unsuccessfully pressed the prime minister and his minions to tell us what the government intends to do about income splitting.
This means income splitting is likely dead, which is good news. I think it is a bad idea — as policy and as politics — because it would give too much money too few people: big stacks of cash to well- off one- income families.
People in well- off one- income families, of course, disagree, and so do social Conservatives, who strongly believe the government should encourage mothers to stay at home.
Kenney is the standard bearer for those social Conservatives, which puts him in a delicate position in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa.
When people in Ottawa gather to drink and gossip, we gossip about Kenney, wondering whether he wants Harper’s job someday or will be content to be kingmaker.
This means that even when Kenney is not trying to assert his view of the world in a leaderly way — as he wasn’t doing on Wednesday — he seems to be doing so. It’s how he is seen.
He is reported to say that he never gives the leadership a passing thought, but he is more than smart enough to know that nobody believes him.
That has not stopped him from voting in favour of an anti- abortion motion, speaking up in defence of Nigel Wright or saying that Rob Ford should resign — all moves that lined up with caucus sentiment while getting offside with the PMO.
Kenney can act with such freedom because he is the nearest thing in Harper’s government to an irreplaceable lieutenant, the best politician in the cabinet.
Peter MacKay may be more popular, James Moore more moderate, Lisa Raitt a better communicator, John Baird quicker on his feet and Jim Flaherty more important, but Kenney has the juice.
He pushes files with energy and skill, winning respect across ideological gulfs for his intelligence, good faith and energy. In a government where even top bananas often look like spokes-ministers, Kenney can scrum all day, switching easily from English to French, winning a fair hearing for policies that would meet more resistance if presented in talking point form.
And he is an organizer. As the minister for curry in a hurry, he has spoken at hundreds of ethnic events, compiling a database that would give him a huge head start in a leadership race.
That may explain the apparent tension between Kenney and Flaherty: Kenney is widely credited for the Tories’ game- changing gains around Toronto, which is Flaherty’s fiefdom, thank you very much.
When Kenney called for Ford’s resignation, Flaherty shocked Tory MPs in the House of Commons by telling Kenney to “shut the ( expletive) up.”
I don’t expect Kenney to follow Flaherty’s advice, and I suspect he’ll one day seek Harper’s job, but it’s hard to be sure, in part because he’s a bachelor — married to his job, they say.
That’s his private business, but voters — especially the family- values voters who would form Kenney’s base — generally like their leaders to have a spouse.
In Right Side Up, Paul Wells quotes Kenney making a true but impolitic comment about Zsuzsanna M. Zsohar, Michael Ignatieff’s very charming wife.
“We were joking this morning,” Kenney told Wells. “What’s Ignatieff’s wife’s name again? Exactly. So in the next election it’s Steve and Laureen vs. Count Michael and What’sHer- Name. It’s almost a dream for us.”
I suspect Kenney knows that if he wants Harper’s job, he needs a wife.