The Rob Ford crack scandal has boiled over in the House of Commons, where differing opinions of the mayor’s actions erupted into a profanity-laced exchange between two of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s top lieutenants last month, according to media reports.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, a close family friend of the Fords who teared up when asked about the mayor’s admission to having smoked crack, reportedly lashed out at his colleague, Employment Minister Jason Kenney, after he became the first minister to publicly denounce Ford’s behaviour and call on him to step down.

Just after Kenney’s comments on Nov. 19, as the two ministers were taking their seats in the House of Commons, Flaherty told Kenney to “shut the f--- up,” the CBC reported, citing several Conservative MPs who overheard the exchange.

Kenney responded angrily, and several elected Conservatives told the CBC they were worried the verbal exchange would escalate.

A representative for Flaherty did not return the Star’s request for comment, while a member of Kenney’s staff referred to the minister’s appearance on CBC Radio on Saturday, when he pointedly didn’t deny the exchange occurred.

“Jim Flaherty and I get along extremely well,” he told The House host Evan Solomon “We may not have agreed on everything over the past seven years, but we’ve agreed on most things.”

Kenney reiterated his critique of Ford, saying, “I’d like to believe that there is some intrinsic honour and value in elected office, in an important office such as the mayoralty of our largest city, and I think that requires not human perfection but a certain degree of dignity and conduct, which we’ve seen lacking from this mayor, to say the very least.”

Only weeks before the public spat, Flaherty had choked up when asked about Rob Ford’s drug use.

“At the end of the day, he has to make his own decision about what he ought to do,” he said at the time.

Kenney’s comments also reportedly angered other Conservatives elected in the GTA, who told the CBC they had been given strict instructions to avoid commenting on the Rob Ford scandal.

Voters from Ford Nation are still seen as essential for the federal Conservatives’ chances of securing another majority in 2015.

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