Prime Minister Stephen Harper (R) and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (L) walk to the House of Commons to deliver the budget on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.Dave Chan for The Globe and Mail
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To borrow a phrase, when it comes to cabinet shuffles, those who know aren't talking and those who are talking don't know. That is nowhere more evident than in the debate over whether Stephen Harper will replace Jim Flaherty as Finance Minister.
But while we don't know what the Prime Minister is thinking, we do know that Mr. Harper is a keen student of history. And history tells us that he would be wise to leave Mr. Flaherty where he is.
There are two arguments for replacing Mr. Flaherty: one sound and one facile. The sound argument centres on his health. The Finance Minister is battling a difficult skin condition. Mr. Harper will need to be convinced that Mr. Flaherty is able to give 100 per cent for the next two years. Otherwise he has not only a right but a duty to replace him.
The facile argument involves cosmetics. The Conservatives, according to this argument, need to kick-start a moribund administration with a cabinet shuffle that sends a clear message of renewal. Replacing the finance minister, according to this reasoning, would signal that renewal. But experience tells us that this reasoning is flawed.
Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin performed effectively as a team, until personal animosity and ambition caused a rupture that forced Mr. Martin out and, eventually, Mr. Chrétien to retire. The damage to the Liberal Party from that civil war contributed to Mr. Martin's short tenure as Mr. Chrétien's successor.
John Turner's star ascended during his years as Pierre Trudeau's finance minister. But Mr. Turner, who had his own ambitions to become prime minister, resigned in 1976 over a policy dispute, which contributed to the Liberal defeat in 1979 and, ultimately, damaged his own future prospects.
And then there was the case of Walter Gordon. He and Lester B. Pearson were friends, and Pearson made Gordon his finance minister when the Liberals won in 1963. But Gordon's first, strongly nationalist, budget created an enormous backlash, including within the cabinet itself. Mr. Pearson ordered the budget's most contentious aspects watered down or removed.
Not only did the fiasco end the friendship between the two men, but Stephen Azzi believes it robbed Pearson of a majority government in the next election.
"Pearson had come to power promising to restore competence," observes Mr. Azzi, a political scientist at Ottawa's Carleton University who wrote a book on Walter Gordon. "And to have this disaster in the first 60 days of the government showed the Liberals weren't particularly competent either."
Three finance ministers left their job under unpleasant circumstances. In every case, the government of the day paid a price.
The historical parallels are hardly exact. There is no daylight between Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty on policy, and Mr. Flaherty has no ambition to become prime minister.
But precedent teaches us that a breach between a prime minister and a finance minister, whatever the reason for that breach, bodes ill for the government's future. And replacing Mr. Flaherty against his will would certainly create such a breach.
Prof. Azzi's advice to Mr. Harper: "If you agree with [Mr. Flaherty] on economic issues, keep him in place."
History offers the very same advice. And Stephen Harper knows his history.
John Ibbitson