Lisa Raitt, deputy leader of the federal Conservatives, seems not to have received the memo on how mean is the new normal in politics.

It was Raitt’s job this week to criticize the big shuffle of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and she did just that for about half an hour in Ottawa’s National Press Theatre on Wednesday, calling the moves “desperate” and an admission of failure on multiple fronts by the Liberals.

But sprinkled all through Raitt’s criticism were some kind words — compliments, even — for some of the Liberal ministers involved in the shuffle.

Here’s what Raitt said, for instance, about Dominic LeBlanc, Trudeau’s old friend who has now been promoted to intergovernmental affairs minister.

“Minister LeBlanc is well-liked and some people would consider him a ‘Tory whisperer’ because he’s very charming and he does tend to get along,” said Raitt, also noting that beneath the friendly demeanour was a “savvy” political actor.

Raitt had similarly generous words for Jim Carr, even as she was slamming Trudeau’s decision to move Carr out of Natural Resources and into the new post of “International Trade Diversification.”

“Minister Carr was well-liked by his stakeholders and they felt that he was a good voice,” Raitt said. “I think he’s a talented minister, there’s no question about it.”

Raitt also acknowledged that it was a good idea for Trudeau to set up a new, separate ministry for Seniors and to put Hamilton MP Filomena Tassi in charge of it.

“I am happy to see it; I’m happy to see it’s Filomena as well,” Raitt said. “I think Minister Tassi will do a very good job in the role. She is kind. She is caring.”

Raitt, who held multiple cabinet posts during the Conservatives’ near-decade in power, is no pushover in the political arena, happy to take pokes at her rivals in the scrums or on Twitter.

When Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s new minister in charge of immigration, got into a war of words last week with federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen — and then Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts — Raitt rushed to the ramparts on Twitter.

“These guys are picking fights with the wrong women, eh @MacLeodLisa?” Raitt said in one tweet last weekend. “Bring it on boys — we won’t be deterred by name-calling.”

We are apparently heading into a new, more cantankerous era between Ottawa and Queen’s Park; between the red and blue teams in both capitals. This new climate of combativeness was one of the driving forces behind Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle, we’re told — why a whole new minister, LeBlanc, is needed to manage the escalating tension around the first ministers’ table.

In these days of Trump and Twitter (the subject of last week’s column) it’s going to take some serious discipline to avoid the descent into raw nastiness — the kind we see every day south of the border. Politics is always personal — that’s not new — but the deeply personal enmity between partisans seems to be increasing in Ottawa these past few years, across all parties. It’s not U.S.-style meanness, but it could head there.

That’s what made Raitt’s comments so remarkable this week and perhaps a bit of a milepost on how far things have already travelled down the low road. The nastiness is so pervasive that we sit up and take note when politicians can manage to say something kind about their rivals.

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It’s being said that this week’s cabinet shuffle was the official end to “sunny ways” governance by Trudeau. Some may argue that it never existed at all — that it was just another slogan to depict Trudeau as the opposite of former prime minister Stephen Harper.

But Raitt did show this week how it’s possible to do criticism on the sunny, high road. An endangered skill, perhaps, but one worth preserving, especially if Canada is determined to not fall into Trump-style politics here.

Susan Delacourt is a former Star reporter who is a current freelance columnist based in Ottawa. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@bell.net

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