Set aside Tuesday’s NDP’s election victory in the Conservative heartland of Alberta and Stephen Harper’s ruling party still had a terrible week.

If anything, the magnitude of the Alberta political earthquake diverted attention from a string of smaller but potentially more significant tremors that suggest that all is not well in Harperland.

All week, partisan overkill made the government look both ugly and inept. It is hard to think of a more self-defeating combination for a party that is about to solicit a fourth mandate.

Here are some highlights:

The prime minister travels to Iraq and Kuwait — close to the frontline in the war against Islamic State extremists — ostensibly to show his support for our troops. Scores of photo opportunities follow. In their eagerness to showcase their boss in the role of commander-in-chief (and rake up pre-election points), the seasoned operators of the prime minister’s spin machine break protocol and post two promotional videos that feature members of Canada’s special forces.

Keeping the identity of those soldiers secret by not showing pictures of their faces is so paramount to their safety that any imbedded journalist caught breaking the rule would automatically be sent home. When alerted to the security breach the PMO initially shifts part of the blame unto the national defense department. That turns out to be a fabrication as no vetting was sought and no heads-up given to the military brass prior to putting the videos on line.

RCMP documents filed as part of Mike Duffy’s trial show that Harper’s palace guard doctored an independent Senate audit in an effort to keep a lid on the expense scandal. Slowly but inexorably, the disgraced senator’s trial continues to turn into a trial by proxy of the ethical culture that prevails at the highest levels of the current government.

Based on this week’s military video episode, the Duffy mess did not fundamentally alter the ways of the PMO.

The Conservatives lose a legal battle to keep Omar Khadr behind bars until a court hears a federal appeal of the decision to let him out on bail. That happens just as the Conservatives are primed to bask in the glow of the adoption of their anti-terror bill in the Commons.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney is tasked with sharing the government’s unhappiness with the ruling with the media. This is the same government that has argued all week in the House that it cannot comment on its handing of the Duffy scandal . . . because the issue is before the courts.

As the former Guantanamo detainee holds his first scrum, it becomes apparent why Harper’s government was so adamant that he not be allowed to speak to the media. It was easier to paint Khadr as an unredeemable terrorist in the abstract than it will be now that most Canadians have the opportunity to hear from the actual person.

The Liberals throw down a gauntlet to the government on the field of tax cuts and child benefits. Instead of having the finance minister offer a substantive rebuttal (if such a thing is possible) the government sends its leading attack dog into the fray. True to form, Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre proceeds to fabricate Liberal policy on the fly the better to denounce it. He spends much of the week chewing hard on a rubber bone of his own making.

A once-trusted senior minister in Harper’s government leads the Alberta Tories to a stunning election defeat. Possibly because he feels he is on roll, Poilievre sets his sights on Jim Prentice, whom he says was punished by voters for having come up with a “hard-left” provincial budget. Those comments are not likely to buy Harper’s Alberta incumbents a lot of goodwill in some Tory circles come election time.

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Week’s end finds most Conservatives craving for a distraction. It comes in the shape of monthly employment numbers that show that Canada lost four times more jobs than expected in April . . . .

The earth did not shift from under the feet of the ruling federal Conservatives this week but there were plenty of warning signs that it could next fall.

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