Metaphor of the night

Joan Bryden wins

It may have been an omen of things to come.

While Lisa Raitt was getting gussied up for her swearing-in ceremony last fall, her hair dryer burst into flames. The rookie Conservative MP easily extinguished that fire and was vaulted a week later into Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet.

But seven months into the job as natural resources minister, the 41-year-old mother of two small boys finds herself putting out major conflagrations on multiple fronts. And if opposition parties get their way, her budding political career may yet be consumed by the flames.