“There’s no such thing as a genius in politics,” said Jean Chretien – who then added that he had never actually met someone who is a genius at politics. He went on: “There are only human beings, some better than others, who rise or fall on the challenges they meet.”

True enough. But the ones who tend to do better at the political game? They are either lucky, or experienced.

Mark Carney had better hope that the 24 (24!) newcomers he selected for his cabinet on Tuesday are lucky – because they sure aren’t experienced. None of them have helped to manage an organization as big as the Government of Canada before. Not one.

That is why the Liberal Prime Minister’s cabinet seems more like an actual change in government than a cabinet shuffle. The sort of changes ushered in by Carney will mean lots of uncertainty, for him – and for Canadians. We simply don’t know enough about these newcomers to evaluate how they will do.

Thirteen of the new ministers are new to being a Member of Parliament, as well. So we don’t even have their record as an MP to examine, and predict how they’ll do.

The jobs that have been handed to the (relative) new kids on Centre Block aren’t inconsequential, either.  Consider:

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CALGARY – Mark Carney is doing a pretty good job so far. Sorry, folks, but he is. Three reasons.

One has to do with that meeting with Donald Trump. If you’ve worked for a Prime Minister (and I have), your job is to just avoid disaster, pretty much. Achievements are few and far between. So, the job is mainly to keep the boss from stepping on landmines.

There were a lot of landmines in Donald Trump’s office, this week. They weren’t easy to see, because that room has now been done up in so much gold and gilt it resembles the receiving room at Wild West brothel. But the landmines were there.

Trump was going to say something crazy about Canada – that was a given. He was going to say something that was wildly, provably false. He was going to make stuff up, just to see how Mark Carney would react.

Those were the landmines, and guess what? Mark Carney didn’t step on any of them. Closely resembling the central the banker that he is – a job which typically involves listening to idiot politicians say idiotic things, and keeping one’s cool – Mark Carney kept his cool.

He let Trump talk, and then delivered the one line he’d flown to Washington to deliver: namely, that Canada wasn’t for sale, ever. Huzzah! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, as George W. Bush might say.

Reason number two has to do with Pierre Poilievre, who Mark Carney wants you to think is his adversary. But he isn’t. After blowing a 30-point lead, losing an election that was in the bag, and then getting the pink slip in the riding he’d held for two decades, Pierre Poilievre is someone Mark Carney really, really wants to keep around.

So, when a reporter asked Carney about accommodating Poilievre’s desire to run in an Alberta seat where a fence post painted blue could win in a landslide, Carney was all magnanimous and whatnot, and said he’d do what he could to grease the wheels of democracy, blah blah blah.

I was impressed by his acting skills, on that occasion. If there’s anybody who really, really – REALLY – wants to keep Pierre Poilievre around, it’s Mark Carney. But he didn’t show that. He was sort-of lowkey about it, and the commentariat predictably ran around saying how refreshingly Prime Ministerial he was. But that’s nonsense: Mark Carney gave himself a big gift, and he tricked everyone into thinking he was being a charitable nice guy. Clever.

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