Flaherty to Jump to Ontario Tory Leadership?

The pieces are in place, but would the prime minister let go of one of his most trusted cabinet ministers?

Jim Flaherty, the country's finance minister, could be looking at jumping ship to join the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in a bid to unseat Leader Tim Hudak, if a column or two can be believed. Bob Hepburn of the Toronto Star wrote that Flaherty is "reportedly tired of the heavy international travel required in his job, which keeps him away from his Whitby home for long stretches at a time," and realizes that his current boss isn't going let poor Jimmy climb to the nation's top post. Combined with Hudak's less-than-stellar showing in the Ontario election, and growing dissent among his caucus, and the fact that Flaherty's MPP wife, Christine Elliot, has reportedly indicated that she'd step aside to let her husband run in her GTA riding.

So, the pieces could be in place, no doubt, and after all, Flaherty was a longtime cabinet minister in Mike Harris' PC government of the 1990s. But we're going to remain just a little skeptical of this for one big reason: It's tough to think of a cabinet minister that's more integral to Harper's government than Flaherty, who as finance minister has seen Canada through the last three years of economic tumult and has played an increasingly important role in negotiating at international economic summits. He's been the face of Canada's relative success in navigating the recession waters, even if he has a habit of giving his government far too much credit for their role in surviving it. Regardless, losing Flaherty, easily one of the government's most competent and likable ministers (which, granted, isn't saying a whole lot), would be a huge blow to the credibility of the Harper government. We can't see Harper just giving his numbers guy the A-OK to leave, not for the time being.