OTTAWA—When Prime Minister Stephen Harper rebooted his cabinet in the summer of 2013, he told us this was the team he wanted to take him into next year’s election.

The prime minister wanted those around him to look a bit younger, a bit more female, a little less shopworn, but he did it in the middle of the summer and the story barely survived a news cycle.

We’re noticing now. Harper just endured the type of week he cannot have repeated heading into an election, reminding us that the wrong person in a senior portfolio can tie a government in knots, knock them off agenda and provide political advantage to an opposition poking at your vulnerable underbelly.

While three ministers promoted or shuffled that day have created problems for Harper, two have quietly shone.

Here’s the quintet, leading with Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino.

This portfolio has long been in disarray, but the former OPP chief has become a lightning rod at the worst possible time for the government. A week of agony for the minister began with an ill-advised decision to continue with a trip to Italy as auditor general Michael Ferguson released a long-anticipated report outlining the inadequate response to vets in need of mental health help by Fantino’s department.

That opened a Pandora’s box of grievances, building on stories of $1.13 billion in allocated and unspent money in the department since 2006, cutbacks within his department, questions over a pre-audit announcement of $200 million in spending, a court challenge by veterans in which the government lawyers appear insensitive, even allegations that Canadian war memorials were not being properly maintained.

Through it all, Fantino has lacked the empathy necessary for the portfolio and has no communications skill. Harper must rue the day he shuffled him into the job. The minister’s future is uncertain.

Environment in Harper’s government can be a career-killer so you probably shouldn’t hasten things by picking a national fight with your constituents then sulking behind a newspaper in the House of Commons when questioned on the matter.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq has a Fantino-style empathy deficit and when stories of her constituents rooting around in landfills for food surfaced, she became combative, more concerned with her reputation than her constituents.

She is also well-known for lambasting a United Nations rapporteur who had the temerity to criticize the Harper government’s performance on northern issues. She wins small points for apologizing on the CBC for her performance, but her real job — as every environment minister under Harper — is not apologizing for becoming a global environmental laggard.

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander is the mystery of the trio, a young, smart, former ambassador with world experience who should have been a natural, but is still finding his way in a complicated portfolio.

While his predecessor Jason Kenney could look tough but sell what he said were necessary immigration measures, Alexander usually looks defensive and a little flinty.

He has been accused of fudging the numbers of Syrian refugees who have been accepted by Canada, looked heartless in cutting medical care for refugee claimants, triggered a constitutional challenge with changes to the Citizenship Act and hung up on a CBC host on live radio.

But on the other hand, there is Health Minister Rona Ambrose.

Ambrose has become a quietly efficient performer. She may have been slow in reacting to the Ebola crisis and still has work ahead of her on thalidomide compensation, but this represents the second consecutive portfolio which Ambrose has demonstrated competence. Trouble looms for Ambrose if the politically explosive and divisive assisted suicide debate should land in the government’s lap before the 2015 vote.

She has come a long way from her early days in cabinet, when the environment file almost crushed her.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Rookie minister Kellie Leitch (status of women) is juggling the question of murdered and missing aboriginal women and has brought the temperature down. Even though there is little substantive movement from the government, Leitch has held her own and has met with aboriginal women and organizations on her own and she has seen them abused in her role as a doctor. She still practises and was, in fact, on duty in hospital over the weekend. She brings calm to a volatile issue, but ultimately the decision to avoid an inquiry is Harper’s.

If you hear little of Ambrose and Leitch, it’s because cabinet ministers are a little like hockey referees. You only notice them during controversy. Harper’s 2013 shuffle, 17 months later, has ultimately brought too much controversy to too many key files.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca , Twitter:@nutgraf1

Read more about: