Canadians who bothered to check in during the dead of summer were treated to a spectacular feat of political marketing on Monday morning.
They were witness to a social media striptease from Stephen Harper’s office, full of breathless tweets, selfies and video quotes from new ministers, everything but canned applause and a laugh track, all in a bid to do the impossible — make a cabinet shuffle look sexy, not solemn.
But the Prime Minister’s Office could have added spotlights and dry ice and it wouldn’t have mattered because this was largely a show we have seen before.
Harper tried to rebrand this team heading to the 2015 election as younger and more gender-equal, and while that was true, the prime minister was really relying on his most familiar brand names, changing the periphery, not the core, opting for the comfortable, not the bold.
If one was to look at a trifecta of challenges facing Harper as he heads into the second half of his mandate — the economy, the balance between resource extraction and the environment and a restive backbench — there was virtually no change at all.
Four women did ascend to cabinet, but only two, Manitoba’s Shelly Glover, 46, (Heritage) and Ontario’s Kellie Leitch, 42, (Labour) were given full portfolios. The 33-year-old Michelle Rempel and Candice Bergen, 48, become lesser ministers of state and the most senior post for a newcomer went to a man: Toronto-area MP and former diplomat Chris Alexander, 44, who takes over Immigration from Jason Kenney.
The number of women in the 39-member cabinet hardly soared, jumping from 11 to 12.
Jim Flaherty, despite rampant speculation, stays as the only Finance minister Harper has ever had and John Baird remains in Foreign Affairs, meaning the two most familiar Canadian faces on the global stage remain the same.
Two other cabinet strongmen, James Moore and Jason Kenney, were elevated to financial and job creation portfolios, Moore to Industry and Kenney to the newly created Employment and Social Development job while Tony Clement stays at Treasury Board, meaning economic portfolios remain with Harper’s most trusted inner circle.
Joe Oliver, known south of the border as the minister of oil, remains as the combative 73-year-old pipeline cheerleader, ready to continue to make news by duking it out with environmentalists from British Columbia to Washington. He is now joined by Leona Aglukkaq who moves from Health to replace the feckless Peter Kent in the Environment portfolio.
Aglukkaq may be an Inuit woman, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she brings a different perspective on the environment, where she has already shown, as chair of the Arctic Council, that she believes northern extraction of resources such as gold, diamonds, oil and gas must trump environmental concerns.
For Aglukkaq, climate change in the north means jobs. Her northern backyard cannot become a giant park, she says.
Rempel is the minister of state for Western Economic Diversification, a portfolio that will include the pipeline battles but, for all the attributes she brings to the job, she will first and foremost be a younger, more telegenic advocate for the Alberta agenda.
As for the tone and demeanour of this government, very little happened Monday to indicate a change there.
Peter Van Loan, the House leader who prefers battles to diplomacy in dealing with the opposition and his own backbench, remains.
If there was a sop to Conservative MPs who rattled their cages over the winter and spring, it was the surprising move to reinstate the low-key and more conciliatory John Duncan after a brief stroll through purgatory to make him the government whip, replacing the former brigadier-general, 74-year-old Gordon O’Connor. But that’s not generational change. Duncan is 64.
With the future of the Senate sure to be an ongoing issue leading to the 2015 vote, Harper decided to elevate Pierre Poilievre to the Democratic Reform portfolio, putting his faith in a man who has never answered an opposition question without hurling a partisan grenade back over the aisle.
There are eight new faces, but new faces don’t translate into new thoughts, new insights or new directions.
We are now looking to the prorogation of Parliament and a throne speech in the autumn to determine where this government is headed in the remainder of its mandate.
As the show ended Monday, Harper sent out the blond-haired, blue-eyed duo of Alexander and Rempel, as the generational change couple. They looked for all the world like the beaming new cabinet valedictorians.
Both have considerable political skills, but it will take that throne speech to determine whether they are just new young salespeople selling the same old Conservative snake oil.
Tim Harper is a syndicated Toronto Star national affairs writer. He can be reached at tharper@thestar.ca.