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“How bad is it?”

“How bad is it …? Well, I hear they’re planning a second trip to India. With brighter costumes and longer dances. That’s how bad. To kick it off they’re going to rename the Rideau River ‘Ganges West.’”

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— Mutterings from the Glebe rumour mill.

Equipoise (n.): a perfect balance of forces.

We are in a rare moment in Canadian politics, a moment of equipoise. It’s rare because equipoise, even in the state of nature is, at least, infrequent. But in politics, it’s a once-in-a-century event when a lone backbench member of Parliament who is, crucially in this case, both female and Aboriginal, holds a power potentially on par with the prime minister.

It is of course Jody Wilson-Raybould who is this phoenix, and it may be of use to outline why, and how, she has come to own such centrality.

Mainly because her prime minister, Mr. Trudeau, through clumsiness, inadvertence and possibly malice, has bestowed it upon her. To begin, all stems from Scott Brison’s flight to a job at BMO, triggering the fatal cabinet shuffle that abruptly banished “Jody” (as the prime minister prefers to call her) from the highest position an Aboriginal woman has ever achieved in cabinet — justice minister and attorney general — to veterans affairs, a portfolio badly mauled and mismanaged by Mr. Trudeau’s friend and colleague, Seamus O’Regan.