Reality check: Stephen Harper’s status quo shuffle – same players, same game

"What we've seen in the past week is the prime minister descending into his own personal style, which is not political, but the loving of a great fight."
– Stephen Harper on Liberal cabinet shuffle, The Star Phoenix, June 3, 2002

Strong words from Stephen Harper a decade ago – but now, as prime minister, he is using the same old script.

Today’s cabinet shuffle was nothing more than an exercise of shuffling deck chairs on a ship that’s out of control and listing far to the right.

Instead of changing direction, Stephen Harper altered a few titles and then doubled down on an approach that has his government beset by ethical scandals and lurching from crisis to crisis.

Harper maintained his record for the largest cabinet in Canadian history, and added fresh faces to cabinet like Pierre Poilievre (best known as the Conservatives' leading partisan attack dog in Question Period) and John Duncan (who had resigned after a conflict of interest scandal.)

And if Canadians look at the senior portfolios they’ll find little has changed.

Same old ministers at major economic portfolios like Finance, Treasury Board, International Trade. Same old ministers at Foreign Affairs and food safety. Same old hyper-partisan Government House Leader. And same old ministers, with new titles, at Justice, Public Safety, Defence, and Industry.

For a man with Stephen Harper's reputation of stubbornly ignoring experts, putting partisanship before sound policy, and rejecting out-of-hand proposals by the opposition, it’s really no surprise that he now wants to try and convince Canadians that adding perennial Conservative attack dog Pierre Poilievre to cabinet constitutes putting a fresh face on his government.

Canadians deserve better.