Jason Kenney: open, accessible and still inscrutable after a decade in spotlight
OTTAWA — Whatever you think you know about Jason Kenney probably doesn’t conform to reality.
Kenney, the 48-year-old star lieutenant to former prime minister Stephen Harper, was one of the highest profile and most media-accessible ministers during a decade of Conservative rule that wasn’t characterized by either trait.
Yet those who know him well say the common Kenney caricature — a rumpled, social conservative, partisan spear-carrying culture warrior with a permanent five o’clock shadow — almost entirely misses the mark.
“He’s one of the warmest, funniest, most engaging people … whereas on television he probably comes across as more associated with the Harper years and a certain style of politics,” says Mark Cameron, a former policy director in Harper’s Prime Minister’s Office who now heads an environmental research group.