OTTAWA—Peter MacKay is working on his French. James Moore is losing weight. And Jason Kenney is working the room at a pub full of journalists hosted by his staff.

Meatballs, devilled eggs and drinks on the house.

It has the feel of a hospitality suite. The kind you’d find at, say, a leadership convention. But of course there’s no race on. Not yet.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted in year-end interviews he intends to lead his party in a 2015 election.

Still, as 2013 drew to a close it was possible to glimpse what a future leadership race for the Conservative Party might one day look like. And to suspect there’s already a frontrunner: Jason Kenney, should he choose to run.

Kenney will not talk about such matters. He sidesteps any effort to probe his interest. People who know him well are divided on whether he will throw his hat in the ring. Some believe it’s absolutely his intent. Others suspect he’d rather be kingmaker, sew up the job of finance minister and still retain the freedom and privacy that the top job doesn’t have.

Whatever his personal ambitions, the 45-year-old Kenney has emerged as a minister unafraid of publicly countering Prime Minister Stephen Harper or asserting views his cabinet colleagues don’t like.

Kenney broke ranks a few times in the past two months as the Senate scandal eroded public confidence in Harper’s carefully groomed image of a leader in firm control.

First, to defend Nigel Wright as a principled man who had an “uncharacteristic” lapse in judgment — right after Harper slammed Wright for deceiving him. Second, to come out flatly against Senate abolition — an option the government has put before the Supreme Court — or any need for a referendum on it. Third, to denounce the behaviour of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Harper’s GTA ally, as a disgrace to public office and call for him to step aside.

CBC Radio’s The House reported Finance Minister Jim Flaherty rebuked Kenney in the Commons over Ford, telling him to “shut the f--- up.” Kenney barked back at Flaherty.

The clash of two political powerhouses on the floor of the Commons may be a small eruption at the end of a tense time for Conservatives. But the fact that tensions are on display signals caucus divisions — and perhaps political ambitions — are simmering not far beneath the surface.

At the last cabinet shuffle, Flaherty openly lobbied to keep his job. Harper kept Flaherty on and made Kenney, a former finance critic, human resources minister with a new title: Employment and Social Development Minister.

He got responsibility for job training, unemployment insurance, old age security, and the Canada Pension Plan.

The inside joke: Kenney — a fiscal conservative and past head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — is now minister of the welfare state.

On the other hand, it unquestionably showed Harper’s continued confidence in the Calgary MP, who rose from the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary up through the ministerial ranks. Of cabinet ministers said to be the savviest, most prepared and best able to go toe-to-toe with the prime minister in cabinet, Kenney and James Moore top the list, said one source.

In fact, Harper has entrusted Kenney with nailing one of his toughest files: the 2013 budget showpiece, the Canada Jobs Grant. It’s up to Kenney to negotiate with provinces and business leaders to implement a policy that was sprung on them with no warning and will revamp how some $300 million in skills training money is spent.

A workhorse, Kenney also retained the chair of cabinet’s powerful operations committee, sits on two other committees — social affairs, and planning and priorities — and still holds the reins on the multiculturalism file.

He wanted that. It turns out all those years as the government’s lead on multiculturalism, immigration and citizenship files and the party’s lead on ethnic voter outreach left Kenney quite liking his role of “minister of curry in a hurry.”

Kenney, an unabashed extrovert, has greetings in dozens of different languages on his Blackberry. He counts good friends in ethnic communities and ethnic media across the country, especially in southern Ontario ridings.

He’s earned political support and cash from many of those same ridings — the better to host hospitality suites, to lend money to fellow candidates whose bank accounts are not as flush, and to be a power broker come any future leadership race.

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The CBC’s Kady O’Malley documented that Kenney even out-fundraised Harper last year. In 2012, Harper’s Calgary Southwest riding association raised just over $100,000 from 404 contributors, with just two Toronto-based donations of more than $200.

Next door, Kenney’s Calgary Southeast riding association pulled in nearly double that amount from double the number of donors across Canada — $195,000 from 951 contributors, including more than $50,000 in donations over $200 from 78 supporters in the Toronto area.

Ontario’s been particularly good to Kenney. Since 2007, after he became a junior minister in charge of multiculturalism, donors from this province poured $145,000 into his riding association.

Long identified with the social conservative wing of his party, Kenney was first elected in 1997 at 29 as a Reform MP. He has won re-election five more times since, increasing his popular vote on each ballot except 2008.

Among likely contenders for the party leadership one day — a list that invariably includes Moore, MacKay, and former cabinet colleague Jim Prentice — it is Kenney who would be able to rally the votes of social conservatives, whether for his own benefit or that of his preferred candidate.

The larger question perhaps for Kenney would be even if he were able to win the party, could he win the country?

But that is surely a question for another day.

For now, he’s young enough that he can afford to wait if Harper does stick around and hangs on to his current finance minister, Flaherty, who also insists he’s not going anywhere.

Meanwhile, Kenney’s not the only Conservative minister who is a little more outspoken these days. MacKay, Moore, Quebec’s Maxime Bernier and others who are not believed to harbour leadership ambitions like John Baird, Lisa Raitt, Rona Ambrose and Michelle Rempel are also more vocal and publicly visible than ever.

Consultant Tim Powers, a Conservative strategist, does not see any of it as leadership jockeying, but a sign of generational maturity.

Powers suggests the strongest cabinet performers are more confident, politically comfortable and willing to assert themselves, perhaps knowing their future political profile will depend not so much on Harper, but on their own “reputational positioning.”

“All are extremely loyal to the prime minister,” says Powers, and “all recognize that . . . an open leadership race is not good for the party or for them.”

On the other hand, says Powers, their visibility is “arguably a benefit” to the prime minister and the party if his strong players are “more out there” and engaging Canadians.

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