Harper’s bench losing its strength
Power outage: With several key figures gone or going, PM’s vanguard much reduced heading into fall election
There’s something about three — or four, or five, or six. Who’s counting, at this point? Not very long ago at all, a matter of months, most anyone handicapping the federal Conservative party succession would have placed, at the very top of the list, a group of senior cabinet players who had for years formed the bulwark of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s front bench. These were his stars; his Praetorian Guard of ministers who could be relied upon to handle difficult files with aplomb.
Four months before a federal election, that list has been quite dramatically redrawn — in some cases due to retirements, in others due to missteps, health or family concerns. And here’s what’s most curious about this shift, which continued apace Friday with news that Industry Minister James Moore won’t seek re-election: The Tory movement’s most moderate senior players have gradually dropped away, leaving an inner circle populated by far less experienced, more stridently partisan figures.
Consider, first, three who were until very recently at the very pinnacle of the party’s power structure, short of the PM himself: Moore, John Baird and Peter MacKay. Though he was said not to want the leadership, Baird was routinely mentioned as a prospect. The former foreign affairs minister might, of course, return. Or he might examine the recent fate of another top Tory who was lured away from a lucrative private-sector job by the prospect of power — that would be Jim Prentice — and gratefully keep his distance.
Let’s talk about Prentice, to digress for a moment: He was the vaunted moderate Conservative former minister, no longer in federal politics, off doing the Lord’s work in Alberta. He would patch up his home province, it was held, and then, possibly, return triumphantly to Ottawa following the Harper era. Oops. The epic scale of Prentice’s recent drubbing by New Democrat Rachel Notley has put an end to such talk.
Back to the current cabinet: Moore — charming, articulate, fluently bilingual, still under 40, with a growing family and a couple of important portfolios under his belt — has long been perceived as someone who might become the anti-Trudeau (during the months when the latter’s rush to power seemed unstoppable) and bring generational change. Moore cited family reasons for stepping out; his young son has special needs. It is the best of reasons for a politician to quit. But he was among the few senior federal Tories who could marshal the party base while also appealing to socially progressive swing voters. His departure leaves a void.
Then there’s MacKay, who despite the unfortunate business with the F-35, has long been a leading minister. In his resignation, MacKay cited a desire to spend more time with his growing family. More so than in Moore’s case, it seemed safe to assume the Nova Scotia Tory scion would return to vie for the leadership later, once Harper retires or is retired. But people who know MacKay suggest to me that’s nowhere near a sure thing.
This would appear to leave only Jason Kenney, among the original group of cabinet luminaries; and his lustre has faded some since he was appointed Defence Minister in February, due to bungles that included a misleading photo of Muslim women in chains and the publication of the faces of some of Canada’s most secretive Special Forces soldiers. Kenney’s status as a single workaholic also denies him the personal narrative some believe is a prerequisite for the top job, more than one Conservative has told me privately.
Lisa Raitt, the Transport Minister, has increasingly been touted as leadership material. She may be Harper’s most consistently reasonable, engaging and persuasive minister. She recently had a cancer scare however, which she has spoken about publicly and from which she emerged with a clean bill of health. Whether Raitt decides to tackle the pressure cooker of federal leadership politics remains to be seen.
Who’s left? Among the old guard there’s Treasury Board president Tony Clement, still relatively young at 54 and a competent, albeit low-key minister in recent years, with his G20 spending controversy mostly faded from public view. Hailing from Muskoka, Ont., Clement could conceivably inherit the mantle of Ontario Bill Davis Tory-ism once owned by the late Jim Flaherty. And there are the ambitious up-and-comers — Michelle Rempel and Chris Alexander come to mind.
There is also, of course, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall to consider: He now looks, in a much narrower field, to be the favourite.
But this bench is, rather suddenly, a very far cry from what it was. It leaves the PM fighting for his political life with a vanguard much reduced, in both talent and cross-spectrum appeal, at a most inconvenient time.