"I'm guessing"...you say, Doug, and you may be accurate.  However, I'm guessing that, like you, Joly's advisors--like the advisors of other cabinet ministers and the PM himself--tried to put her "In positions where they can succeed or have a chance of success..." and she thought she knew better, and wouldn't--or couldn't--follow advice.

I was a consultant for too many years to think otherwise. You're only as good as your client, employee, or, in this case, minister allows you to be.  As one client once told me in frustration, "Why are you always so negative??" Well, I was a worst-case scenario kind of guy in my day.  Hunch there's a lot of head-shaking going on up on Parliament Hill these days.