There is a story about former prime minister Brian Mulroney and Derek Burney that has been going around Ottawa for years.

A few months before the 1988 election, Mulroney asked Burney to be his chief of staff. Burney had one condition, and he was adamant. Burney told Mulroney he understood why the prime minister would feel loyal to the people in his office who helped him come to power. But gaining power was one thing; using it was another.

So, if Burney were to become chief of staff, Mulroney’s friends and loyalists would have to go.

Whether that story is true or not is not really important. Burney did take the job as Mulroney’s chief of staff, and loyalists who had been at Mulroney’s side for years did quickly depart the PMO.

Burney turned out to be the perfect Cardinal Richelieu Mulroney needed after a tumultuous and undisciplined first four years in office. Burney rescued the stalled free trade negotiations with the U.S. and guided Mulroney to a second majority government in November 1988. In addition, Mulroney’s PMO staff were no longer in the news for the wrong reasons.

Stephen Harper should give this little bit of Parliament Hill lore some deep thought. Otherwise, he can expect the 27 months leading up to the 2015 election to be much like the six months he has just had to endure. A cabinet shuffle with a few fresh faces isn’t going to cut it.

Since 1987, when the chief of staff position was first created, this aide has been the top dog in the PMO. (Before that, the principal secretary to the prime minister was the top aide.)

The ideal top aide in the PMO should be like Richelieu: a ruthless, hard-line strategist who can rebuke the boss when necessary. In other words, the power behind the throne.

All successful prime ministers have had such an aide. Jean Chrétien had Jean Pelletier, known as “the smiling executioner.” Pierre Trudeau had Jim Coutts and Tom Axworthy. Lester Pearson had Tom Kent. Even Mackenzie King had a key aide in Jack Pickersgill.

Paul Martin might still be prime minister today if there had been a Richelieu standing behind him. Same with Joe Clark.

Harper has had some very able chiefs of staff, but no one who has acted as his alter ego – although Nigel Wright eventually may have filled that role had he not fallen on his sword in the Senate scandal. (For the record, the PMO has been stumbling about like a bunch of amateurs since Wright left.)

Harper has tried to be his own Richelieu, which is why many Canadians no longer like him very much.

It is the job of the top aide to be the professional SOB, while the prime minister smiles at the voters and kisses babies. Chrétien understood this very well. But Harper apparently hasn’t learned the lesson his predecessors lived by.

In fact, Chrétien learned the hard way, back in his days as Opposition leader. By 1992, the Opposition leader’s office was in such a state of chaos that Chrétien had to find a new job for his old loyalist friend, Eddie Goldenberg, and go outside the party to hire Pelletier as his chief of staff.

Had Chrétien not made that tough decision, the 1993 election result might have been very different.

Justin Trudeau understands this concept. He has Dan Gagnier, Jean Charest’s former chief of staff, behind the curtain while Trudeau smiles and does yoga poses in public.

A logical person to do this for Harper would be Burney, who, after all, headed up the Conservative transition team at the PMO after the 2006 election. But that is not likely to happen because the two men do not get along, just as Harper has not remained close with any of his former chiefs of staff.

Until there is someone in the PMO who can tell Harper to get back on the high road, many Canadians will continue to regard him as competent but ethically challenged.

Recent events tell the tale. Think of what would have happened if someone had told Harper to pick up the phone and call the RCMP when news first broke of Senator Mike Duffy’s excessive expenses. Instead, the PMO conducted a charade to try to defuse a situation that eventually turned catastrophic for a government already struggling with integrity issues.

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