A few minutes after the swearing-in of a shuffled cabinet, Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to the news media. Two questions in English, two in French. Good-bye.
Meanwhile, a staffer in his office circulates instructions to incoming ministers warning them to be on red alert for "enemies" in the bureaucracy, the media, the opposition parties and Lord knows where else.
Stories swirl about the RCMP investigation into Senator Mike Duffy's affairs. These stories more than suggest a sustained effort by the Prime Minister's Office not to come clean, but to cover up to the greatest extent possible.
The deputy defence minister, acting on behalf of the government, stonewalls Parliamentary Budget Office attempts to gain information about major defence purchases, most of which are way over budget and/or way behind schedule. This information is secret, he asserts, essentially telling Parliament to get lost.
Something new: a cabinet. Something old: a way of doing politics – controlling, secretive, obsessive, almost paranoid. In a matter of days, hours even, after this "new" cabinet arrives, the government stiffs the media, the RCMP, the bureaucracy and Parliament.
A few faces can change, but the Harper Conservatives cannot. How they do politics and how they govern – the former often trumping the latter – reflects who they are, how they think, how they see the world, how they see democracy. These attitudes emanate from the very top, and Mr. Harper cannot change.
The party tried to put a sweater on him to make him more cuddly. He looked ridiculous. Another time, he played the piano at the National Arts Centre. That surprised people who did not know he could play the instrument. Here at last was the human Mr. Harper, but that performance was a one-shot deal, never to be repeated.
This fall, the Prime Minister's book on hockey history will appear. It will reflect his genuine interest and knowledge of the subject. It will provide a small window into an intensely private man. That window won't remain open for long.
The silly memo about "enemies" typifies the Conservatives' closed-shop mentality. The advice appeared in an otherwise straightforward memo of the kind every new minister would receive. But jejune advice reflected the profound suspicion with which the government regards everything and everyone that doesn't confirm its pre-existing opinions.
It is one thing for any government to be on the lookout for trouble, because trouble comes with governing. It is another to believe that trouble is at hand everywhere, or that it would be if information were not circumscribed, institutional checks and balances weakened, facts not given a full airing, every ounce of the spontaneous squeezed from every facet of the government's presentations.
Many anecdotes confirm that the Prime Minister has his hands on everything of importance in the government. He is formidably well-informed. When confronted with positions that differ from his own, he punches back, and hard.
He will punch and punch again, and his interlocutors will go away psychologically bleeding. But it sometimes happens that, after a while, the Prime Minister will embrace a view he had once denounced and claim it as his own. He can change his mind, in other words, though not easily and not often. Descriptions on this dynamic have been recounted privately so often, including by ministers past and present, that they offer reliable insight.
It is said by admirers that Mr. Harper is a master strategist, anticipating developments well before anyone else and planning how current decisions fit into a discernible pattern that will only appear logical in the fullness of time.
If so, Mr. Harper must have some tantalizing long-range perspectives for new policies, because for the moment, policies are in a rut. Major initiatives are stalled – trade agreements, job creation, skills upgrading. More "tough on crime" legislation will be hard to imagine, short of bringing back the noose. Military purchases are somewhere between farce and fiasco.
The government could try to recast how it sees and does politics, understanding that its style has turned off almost everyone but core Conservatives. That, however, would be asking the impossible.