Harper's disdain for new blood baffling

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Defence Minister Peter MacKay (left) with Stephen Harper. There's a growing sense in Conservative circles that the government does not have its freshest horses in the race. (DAVID KAWAI / POSTMEDIA NEWS ARCHIVES)

So that's it, then: The government is on track. Europe is tanking, China slowing, the U.S. struggling. Therefore, no time to waste shuffling the cabinet, beyond plugging the hole created by Bev Oda's unlamented departure.

The Harper team is hell-bent on doing its important economic work! Everyone -- especially the yammering media and the "armchair strategists" who had expected more substantive change -- should get a life.

Well, OK. But allow me to raise a timid, dissenting hand, and pose a few timid, dissenting questions.

First, we should note that there may yet be a deeper, broader shuffle in the fall. But assuming there isn't: Why has there been such a chorus of anticipation about a late summer cabinet redo that would go beyond the superficial and push new blood (read younger, less jaded and more female) into the inner circle?

Hmm. Could it be because many Conservatives themselves believe such a refit would have been in their interest? Could it be some have their ears to the ground in a way that their boss, perhaps, no longer does?

Contrary to the impression you may have gotten from the rabid, mindless partisanship in the House of Commons or in the Twitterverse, not all party loyalists are unthinking automatons who line up to salute every move by the reigning clique.

The opposite often holds true, in every party. A hallmark of this Conservative government, often ignored by its critics, has been the degree to which it paid heed to those internal, dissenting voices.

It was internal dissent, not a public outcry, that scuttled Vic Toews' abortive Bill C-30, the "online snooping bill," last fall.

The Prime Minister's Office has been mum about a cabinet shuffle. The speculation, such as it was, has come primarily from the Tory backbenches, and more broadly from within the network of Tory-linked communications and lobbying firms that feed ideas and feedback to the government while swapping information and speculation about who's up and who's down, who's performing well and who badly, and so on.

Official Ottawa is a village whose residents love nothing better than to gossip over the backyard fence.

It is these people, primarily, who've been anticipating a summer cabinet shuffle. Now, why would that be?

Because they are not all unthinking, blindly obedient automatons, some Conservative MPs, staffers and strategists are intensely aware that the past year has been rocky, with the government repeatedly side-swiped by controversy or scandal, from C-31 to robocalls to the F-35.

Just as there was no appetite internally for any further Oda-related bad optics, there's impatience at the degree of damage sustained by all due to the problems of a few -- Peter MacKay, Julian Fantino, Vic Toews, Christian Paradis and Dean Del Mastro, to name five.

In demoting them, Harper would have satisfied primarily internal critics. In supporting them (or promoting them, in Fantino's case), he is stiff-arming these same critics.

There's a growing sense in Conservative circles that the government does not have its freshest horses in the race.

MPs James Rajotte, Chris Alexander, Kellie Leitch, Michelle Rempel and Candice Hoeppner all have distinguished themselves, either in pre-political life or as foot-soldiers in the Commons. They have supporters in the Tory caucus who would like to see them shine.

It is not a coincidence they tend towards youth or that there are women among them.

Some Conservatives are justifiably leery of being perceived as the political equivalent of the angry old coot on his porch, shaking his fist and throwing little sticks at passing children.

Here's the message Harper has sent to those folks, fighters within his own ranks, as the government heads into majority Year 2: Be mindful of your place. Your views don't matter. And stop blabbering so much to the media, as that will get you and your agenda a whole lot of nothing.

In Year 2, as a means of maintaining cohesion and discipline, this strategy will probably work. What about in Year 4? Presumably the prime minister will eventually again require the services of the whole party rather than just the coterie of insiders at its centre.

Beyond the party, and even more troubling, is Harper's message to the broader population: Whatever concerns or objections you may have to either our program or the manner of its delivery, you can set those aside. Your views don't matter. Public opinion polls showing NDP support rising and Conservative support sliding since the May 2011 election don't matter either. We have our majority. We are in control. If you don't like it, you can vote us out in 2015. Until then, you may as well, as brides in Victorian England were kindly advised, "lie back and think of England."

Really? Stephen Harper, the hard man with the economic plan, has shown time and again he is not to be underestimated. But this kind of obduracy, after the year the Conservatives have had? It is, simply, weird. It's difficult to see where they go from here*ü once the economic agenda becomes furniture.

Michael Den Tandt is a national

columnist for Postmedia News.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 6, 2012 A12