Back in the fold

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:31 PM - 11 Comments

Maxime Bernier notes his cabinet appointment.

Small businesses, including those in Canada’s tourism sector, are the backbone of our economy. Entrepreneurship and economic development are topics that I have felt passionately about for a very long time. My native region, the Beauce, is often described as the kingdom of small businesses. I am thus very happy to play a role in our new government with the goal of maintaining the best environment possible so that Canada’s small businesses continue to prosper.

It should be noted that as a minister, I am like all my colleagues bound by cabinet solidarity and my public declarations must reflect the government’s positions. I therefore have less scope than I had as a simple MP to express my ideas and take public stands on various topics, as I did these past few years. The content of this blog will thus be a bit different from now on.

Harper unveils new cabinet

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 12:19 PM - 15 Comments

Stephen Harper pulled back the curtain on a new, slightly larger cabinet on Tuesday. Among the most notable changes are John Baird taking over for the departed Lawrence Cannon as foreign affairs minister and Tony Clement’s shift to the Treasury Board. Quebec MP Maxime Bernier is back in cabinet after a long exile and was named minister of state for small business. Small changes aside, Harper’s cabinet looks mostly like the old one: Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is staying put, as are Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, Agricultural Minister Gerry Ritz, Environment Minister Peter Kent, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt and Heritage Minister James Moore. In all, membership in cabinet grew by one to 39, tying it with Brian Mulroney’s as the largest in Canadian history.

The Globe and Mail

This year's models

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 10:43 AM - 65 Comments

Welcome to live coverage of this morning’s cabinet shuffle, wherein we find out which backbenchers we have to pretend to take more seriously for the next little while.

There’s been a steady stream of Conservatives arriving at Rideau Hall and the Prime Minister is due shortly. So far we seem only to know for sure that John Baird will be the next Foreign Affairs Minister. Presumably he will be counted on to bluster away opposition criticism of the government’s international endeavours, charm foreign officials and periodically convene breathless news conferences to report the latest breathtaking developments in our make-believe war with Russia. Presumably he’ll do fine. His image problem notwithstanding.

10:45am. Our Andrew Coyne is already deeply disappointed with all of this. Follow his Twitter feed this morning to watch his head explode repeatedly.

10:52am. The Prime Minister has now arrived. The swearing in is to commence in about 20 minutes.

11:04am. CTV reports a 39-member ministry, which equals an all-time high mark. Welcome to the new era of smaller government.

11:07am. Peter Van Loan apparently goes back to House leader. Welcome to the new era of non-partisan Harper governance. Continue…

Seventy-six shoulders strong

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 3:23 PM - 25 Comments

In his first news conference as a minister of state, Ted Menzies is asked to explain why the ministry is so much larger than it was when the current government first took office and proceeds to offer a number of words in response. For the sake of saving readers some time, I’ll bold the words that seem most relevant to the question.

Well, first of all, I’m honored to be part of this cabinet. Many of us have played a role, a pivotal role, many parliamentary secretaries that don’t have a seat at the cabinet table. We are in some very unique and challenging times right now and the more shoulders behind the wheel that we have, I think, will help us. There has been some many – many challenges we faced. We feel that we have done a good job. We need to stay the course and keep moving towards what Canadians have asked us to do and that is get back to balanced budgets and whether, you know, the numbers  at the cabinet table — we have seen more historically in the past. I don’t think that is as big an issue as the quality that we have there, the strength in this cabinet that are working in unison, as recognized by some of the papers in the U.S. just in the last couple of days. Canada is the envy at getting our fiscal house in order, encouraging new businesses to invest. That is the important thing. We are talking about jobs here today. The more we can do to encourage jobs in Canada, I think the better off we will all be.

Our Andrew Coyne notes that Mackenzie King made it through his challenging times with a ministry of 17. More recently, when Mr. Harper became Prime Minister he named a 27-member ministry (with 26 parliamentary secretaries). He now has a 38-member ministry (with 25 parliamentary secretaries).

Continue…

'More focus and purpose; less process and cost'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 5:08 PM - 20 Comments

The Liberals and NDP are both taking issue with the size of Mr. Harper’s cabinet and ministry (though previously two separate things, Mr. Harper doesn’t make any distinction). As noted below, it is once more one of the largest in this nation’s history—including the Prime Minister, the government House leader, the leader of the government in the Senate, 24 ministers and 11 ministers of state.

When Mr. Harper unveiled a ministry of 32 in February 2006, he said “the structure is designed to promote accountable, efficient and effective government—more focus and purpose; less process and cost.”

In an interview with the Toronto Star at the time, Derek Burney, chief of Mr. Harper’s transition team, projected the reduction from Paul Martin’s set-up—cabinet of 33, ministry of 39—would save between $15 and $20-million per year. The Star’s report after the jump. Continue…

Who goes where

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 2:39 PM - 25 Comments

Peter Kent goes from Minister of State for Foreign Affairs to Minister of Environment. Diane Ablonczy goes from Minister of State for Seniors to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Julian Fantino becomes Minister of State for Seniors. Ted Menzies goes from parliamentary secretary for finance to Minister of State for Finance.

With the promotion of Mr. Menzies and the addition of Mr. Fantino, the ministry and the cabinet will once again number 38—one short, on both counts, of the historical high mark.

Official news release after the jump. Continue…

Watching a cabinet shuffle

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 1:58 PM - 11 Comments

Julian Fantino has just arrived at Rideau Hall for today’s cabinet shuffle. At last report he had no idea what was going on.

“I actually don’t know,” he told QMI Agency. “I know there is an announcement but what it is has not been shared with me so far.”

He was followed soon thereafter by Ted Menzies, who was followed soon thereafter by Diane Ablonczy. The primary question now, assuming he is bound for cabinet, is which historical moment or achievement should Mr. Fantino invoke to explain the significance of this day? After the jump, a quick poll. Continue…

The new line-up

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 6, 2010 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

We interrupt this vacation to note that the Prime Minister is on television explaining that Parliament depends on the “maturity and wisdom” of its members.

So John Baird fills Jay Hill’s spot as government house leader, Chuck Strahl fills Baird’s spot at Transport and John Duncan fills Strahl’s spot at Indian Affairs.

As Transport Minister John Baird not only handled questions on the federal stimulus program, he took the Prime Minister’s questions when Mr. Harper was absent from QP and defended other ministers (Helena Guergis, par exemple) when the questions became too incessantly uncomfortable. Continue…

Don't hold your breath

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 15, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 58 Comments

Anonymous senior Conservatives are apparently agitating for Helena Guergis to be swiftly dispatched to the furthest reaches of the government backbenches. Make of this what you will.

Keep in mind that, if memory serves, no minister in the Harper government has been outright fired or banished. Michael Chong resigned as minister of intergovernmental affairs in opposition to the Quebecois motion. Maxime Bernier resigned after misplacing his briefs. Various ministers perceived to be underperforming (Gordon O’Connor, Rona Ambrose, Lisa Raitt) have been moved to less-prominent portfolios, but only in the context of a cabinet shuffle. No one, if I recall correctly, has ever been outright and unambiguously fired.

Royal baggage, Putting the hate in Haiti and Heck of a yard sale

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 22, 2010 at 5:55 PM - 0 Comments

Royal baggage
Britain’s royal family doesn’t travel lightly, but not always by choice. Just look at the swag Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, collected on their recent Canadian tour. The list of books, jams, and teapots, recently catalogued on the Prince of Wales’s website, tops out at more than 100 items. It includes his and hers BlackBerries from the premier of Ontario and a bottle of “Victoria gin” from the mayor of Victoria. Meanwhile, Prince William, who visits Australia this week, was asked to help recover the missing skull of Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy, who was shot dead in 1802 and whose head was sent to England in a glass jar. Elder Michael Mundine says the prince will appreciate the importance of the request because he “has his mother’s heart.”

The manly art of cabinetry
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s larger-than-expected cabinet shuffle Tuesday didn’t advance the thin ranks of women. Lisa Raitt (she of the “sexy” isotope shortage) is bumped from the natural resources portfolio to labour. Rona Ambrose leaves low-profile labour for the giant public works department. Diane Ablonczy becomes minister of state for seniors, going from the equally obscure small business and tourism. Marjory LeBreton remains government leader in the Senate. Expect Harper to give her a Tory majority there to push through his agenda.

Yup, still crazy
Mehmet Ali Agca, 52, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, emerged from a Turkish prison Monday and checked into a five-star hotel. In typical bizarre fashion he called himself the “Christ eternal,” proclaimed the coming “end of the world,” and angled for a huge book deal to tell his story. Agca has never revealed why he tried to kill the pope, or if he was acting alone.

Putting the hate in Haiti
U.S. President Barack Obama’s rapid response to the earthquake in Haiti won praise from former president George W. Bush, but it isn’t playing well with America’s extreme right. Radio host Rush Limbaugh said Obama is using the crisis to “burnish” his image “in both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.” He also advised against donating to the Red Cross relief fund through a link on the White House website, claiming donors could end up on Obama’s mailing list. Meantime, evangelist and former nominee for the Republican presidential ticket, Pat Robertson, said Haiti suffers because its people made an 18th-century pact with the devil to free themselves from French rule. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs labelled both comments “stupid.”

Fore, and after
Golfer John Daly is a shadow of his former self. The hard-living 44-year-old has lost 116 lb., about the poundage of some women playing the LPGA circuit. Daly credits lap-band surgery, an implanted balloon that constricts the stomach. The results are so striking no one recognized him as he tried to enter a recent party after a pro-am event in Honolulu, where he was serving as host. “If I weighed 300 lb. and had four chins, I’d have no problem getting in,” he said. Fans can share Daly’s attempt to get his life and his game on track. His comeback is the subject of a reality show, Being John Daly, premiering on the Golf Channel in March.

Almost famous
It was an assignment to cover an Elvis convention that hooked Delta, B.C., photographer Brian Howell on the wacky world of celebrity impersonators. From there, the frequent Maclean’s contributor travelled North America searching out faux Mick Jaggers, Johnny Depps, Marilyn Monroes and a southern-fried Colonel Sanders. His exploration of celebrity obsession resulted in a photo book, Fame Us, and now a portrait exhibition at Vancouver’s Windsor Gallery. One who escaped his notice is Annette Edwards. The 57-year-old British great-grandmother spent $16,000 on surgeries to replicate the look of slinky Jessica from the animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. “I just think she’s a very sexy cartoon,” she said.

Guess who’s a big soccer fan?
It’s been years since predominantly Muslim Egypt fielded a World Cup-qualifying soccer team, and coach Hassan Shehata seeks the glory of a higher power. “Pious behaviour” is essential to selection on his team. “I strive to make sure that those who wear the Egypt jersey are on good terms with God,” says Shehata. Speaking of which, a near miracle played out on the cricket pitch in New Zealand. Canada earned its first ever World Cup cricket win Friday, defeating Zimbabwe at the under-19 World Cup. “This is the start of hopefully a great future for Canadian cricket,” said team captain Rustam Bhatti.

Heck of a yard sale
Disgraced Montreal money manager Earl Jones, 67, pleaded guilty Friday to defrauding his clients of $50 million over 30 years. Both defence and prosecution are recommending an 11-year sentence, although the 67-year-old will likely serve only a fraction of that behind bars. Jones’s clients face a lifetime of poverty. A charitable assistance fund is spending $5,000 a week in temporary assistance to help 50 seniors whose savings were wiped out. They may see a small share of their money after the sale of four properties previously held by the high-living Jones and his wife—and their contents. A long list of possessions from their Dorval condo, including golf clubs, a golf cart and a Rolex watch, are being auctioned off.

An offer she didn’t refuse
Jackie Collins, the 72-year-old British author of such steamy novels as Hollywood Wives, knows of what she writes. She told U.S. tabloid The Globe she had a fling with actor Marlon Brando when she was just 15. She was attending a Hollywood party with her older sister, actress Joan Collins, when Brando, then about 29, pitched his woo by proxy. “He sent someone over to say, ‘Marlon thinks you’re great-looking and have a great body and would like to meet you,’ ” Collins said. “We had a very brief but fabulous affair. He was at the height of his fame, and gorgeous.” Brando, who died in 2004, could have faced a Roman Polanski-style world of pain had the affair been made public.

Don’t ask me, I’m just the biographer
Rocker Ozzy Osbourne has released I Am Ozzy, his autobiography— or the bits he remembers. As he notes in his introduction: “Other people’s memories of the stuff in this book might not be the same as mine. I ain’t gonna argue with ’em. Over the past 40 years I’ve been loaded on booze, coke, acid, Quaaludes, glue, cough mixture, heroin, Rohypnol, Klon­opin, Vicodin, and too many other heavy-duty substances to list in this footnote . . . I’m not the f–king Encyclopedia Britannica, put it that way. What you read here is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.”

Toy story
Her father’s development of the Frisbee and hula hoop made Elena Marano a wealthy woman, but her ex-husband Peter Marano’s investment in the yo-yo market of London commercial real estate has cost her $8.4 million. Marano is appealing in a British court a settlement requiring her to pay her ex’s real estate losses. He already got an equal share of their $32 million in assets when the 20-year marriage ended in 2007. She claimed her ex’s property portfolio has since rebounded, in a case of “boom, bust and boom again.”

No head games
Just weeks ago Patrice Cormier was the plucky pride of Canada as captain of the national junior team. On Monday, the 19-year-old Rouyn-Noranda Huskies forward was suspended indefinitely by the Quebec hockey league for nailing Mikael Tam of the Quebec Remparts with an elbow to the head. Tam lost teeth, and went into convulsions. It’s the second ugly head-shot in a week to earn a suspension. On Thursday Zach Kassian of the Windsor Spitfires concussed Matt Kennedy of the Barrie Colts.

Jack Benny goes back in the vault
It’s been almost 35 years since the death of comedian Jack Benny, but his international fan club carries on—or tries to. These days, it is spitting mad at CBS. The network had discovered 25 original Benny TV shows long thought lost. The fan club offered to pay to digitize the tapes, which date from the 1950s, and Benny’s family approved the release. But CBS announced it won’t release the prized shows from its archives; there are “issues” blocking their release. Benny received similar shoddy treatment when the network cancelled his show in 1964, says club president Laura Leff. “Sadly, 46 years later, CBS has repeated the sentiment by condemning these shows to permanent silence.” M

The day's most useful analysis

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 12:39 AM - 27 Comments

Via Susan Delacourt.

Rona’s name is pronounced “Ronna”. She’s not a home-reno store. Have heard it wrong more than right today on TV. Just saying.

You say demoted, I say potato

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 11:28 AM - 31 Comments

While most everyone else seems to be using that dreaded word to describe Lisa Raitt’s situation, here is the official line.

Harper said Raitt “has a great future, and I think this move will give her a little more varied experience in government.”

Who seems to be up, who seems to be down

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 11:11 AM - 22 Comments

Conventional perception seems to have Stockwell Day, Christian Paradis and Rona Ambrose rising, Lisa Raitt and Peter Van Loan falling. Keith Ashfield gets a promotion to cabinet, Rob Moore gets to call himself a minister of state.

Early reviews from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star, Canwest, Reuters, Bloomberg, CBC and CTV.

Greg Thompson steps away

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 44 Comments

The Veterans Affairs Minister announces his departure from cabinet and eventual departure from politics.

“I want to leave on my own terms and with a good record,” Thompson said as he sat is his small constituency office on Milltown Boulevard in St. Stephen. ”I’m one of the few members of Parliament who never had to take back a statement, who never had to apologize, and who never insulted individuals or groups in this country. I’ve always played by the rules that I believe elected politicians should play by, and I have been always very respectful of the political process.”

Stop the presses

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 4:55 PM - 44 Comments

CP gets to the bottom of the day’s big news.

Insiders say cabinet heavyweights, including Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Defence Minister Peter MacKay, will stay put and no newcomers will be added … In essence, the shuffle is expected to amount to a handful of ministers swapping portfolios.

Megapundit: The meaning of Jim Prentice

By selley - Friday, October 31, 2008 at 2:35 PM - 7 Comments

Must-reads: Christie Blatchford on the David Frost trial; Colby Cosh on what to do with murderers; Richard Gwyn on the global economy; Dan Gardner on young jihadis; Lorne Gunter on Tasers; Susan Riley on the cabinet shuffle.

Brave new world?
With Stephen Harper’s cabinet successfully shuffled, it’s time to play cards.

The Globe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson seems fairly pleased by Harper’s choices, calling Steven Fletcher’s promotion “heartwarming” and well-deserved, appreciating the redeployment of Peter Van Loan and John Baird to less partisan positions and suggesting if anyone can strengthen the Conservatives’ woeful climate change plan, it’s probably Jim Prentice. His one lament is that the cabinet “contains not a single multicultural Canadian, despite the impressive Conservative gains in some of those communities.” (This seems a tad unfair to Bev Oda, we have to say.)

The National Post‘s John Ivison likens the new dream team to “a Volvo—safe and reliable but not particularly sexy,” and designed to instil confidence in its owners (i.e., Canadians). He didn’t promote anyone “beyond their level of competence or experience,” in other words, and “prudence” was the guiding principle for the major portfolios that got shuffled. Ivison doesn’t quite buy the party spin on Prentice’s appointment, however—i.e., that “his reward for having done a good job in a difficult portfolio, is another difficult portfolio.” He’s “said to be unhappy with the move,” for one thing, and “reduce[ing] emissions without harming the energy industry” is less “difficult” than it is “impossible.” Ivison still believes Prentice’s leadership ambitions, or Harper’s perceptions thereof, played a role.

Continue…

Megapundit: Aftershocks from the blowback of the tsunami

By selley - Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 3:08 PM - 4 Comments

Must-reads: Don Macpherson on Mario Dumont; Murray Campbell on how politicians shouldn’t deal with gun violence.

Shuffling towards liberty
Who will be in Stephen Harper’s new cabinet? And will they be allowed to speak?

Sun Media’s Greg Weston believes it’s “safe to say that [PMO communications director Kory] Teneycke has achieved more for his boss through improved relations with the national press in three months than his predecessor did in three years,” and he suspects that newfound spirit of (more) openness will translate into Harper’s new cabinet as well. It’s not just that the PM is softening up, of course. Part of it, an unnamed insider tells Weston, is that his ministers simply have more experience. So those who “know how to conduct themselves and their office,” in the insider’s words, will have more wiggle room. Implicit in that statement, it seems to us, is that there will still be ministers who don’t know how to conduct themselves and their offices. We can’t wait to find out who they are.

The Calgary Herald‘s Don Martin says Jim Flaherty is a lock to stay at finance and wear the goat horns for what seems sure to be a significant deficit. Continuity is a good thing in troubled times, he argues, but it’s also just desserts, since Flaherty’s the one who “whittled down the inherited Liberal surplus to where he sits now on the film of a bursting fiscal bubble.” Harper himself “is notorious for calling the shots,” of course, so Flaherty may not be entirely to blame. But given his “quibble-worthy performance” overall—notably slagging off Ontario repeatedly, apparently just to satisfy a personal grudge—it’s difficult to muster much sympathy for the guy.

Continue…

Megapundit: Sticking it to the Ayatollah

By selley - Monday, October 27, 2008 at 2:35 PM - 29 Comments

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Must-reads: Daphne Bramham on Nazanin Afshin-Jam; David Olive and Greg Weston on tough economic times; Scott Taylor, off to the Caucasus; Haroon Siddiqui on the Iacobucci inquiry; Dan Gardner on ending the oil addiction; Barbara Yaffe on Bloc Québécois fundraising.

About those election promises…
Prepare to be disappointed for your own good.

The Toronto Star‘s David Olive observes the “awkwardly choreographed dance” currently being performed by the prime minister and the provincial premiers on the matter of deficit financing, whether it’s necessary and who should be blamed for it if it is. “It’s not just that if a swimming pool somewhere has to be closed next year, the premiers want Ottawa to wear it,” he writes. “They also want Ottawa to speed up its spending on job-creating infrastructure projects for which the premiers and territorial leaders could claim some credit when the unemployed start pounding on the doors of legislatures from Charlottetown to Victoria.”

So long as deficits are short term and exist only when times demand them, The Globe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson says there’s nothing inherently wrong with them. But as a habit, they’re a ruinous addiction that’s incredibly hard to break. Consult Hansard from the 1980s and you’ll find “Liberal and NDP MPs … predicting that any attempts at fiscal prudence would result in tens of thousands of people becoming unemployed, communities being crushed, grim fates awaiting millions of vulnerable people,” says Simpson. As such, it would behove the Tories to ditch as many useless, costly election promises as they can—he suggests the two-cent cut to the diesel excise tax and the $5,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers—before they’re forced to ditch the one about never running a deficit.

Continue…

Megapundit: The wrong side of the Rubicon

By selley - Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 2:39 PM - 1 Comment

Must-reads: Haroon Siddiqui on the Iacobucci inquiry; John Ibbitson, lost in Wyoming; Murray Campbell and John Ivison on Ontario’s deficit.

Please welcome Jim Prentice, Minister of Everything
So many portfolios, so few competent people to staff them.

The Toronto Star‘s James Travers advises the Prime Minister to worry less about Quebec in making his new Cabinet and worry more about “managing what’s happening in the United States”—i.e., the financial crisis and the impending challenges and opportunities of a Barack Obama presidency. Harper “needs broad foreign affairs shoulders to help carry the Atlas load of change and crises,” for example—that’s some classic Travers prose right there!—and those shoulders, he says, belong to Jim Prentice. He expects Lawrence Cannon to replace Prentice at Industry, David Emerson to be dispatched to Washington as ambassador “to explain to Washington Democrats why protectionism may be good short-term politics but a lousy way to advance the long-term interests of either country” (which strikes us as a fine idea) and Jim Flaherty to remain at finance, where he can “absorb the inevitable blame for hard times.” (We have no problem with that, either.)

Sun Media’s Greg Weston expects few fireworks in the Cabinet shuffle. He has Prentice staying at Industry “to deal with the growing upheaval in the manufacturing sector, including the possible demise of the auto industry as we know it,” and he thinks Cannon would be ideal for Foreign Affairs except that “he will likely be Harper’s lieutenant for Quebec,” which is “a full-time job in itself.” That leaves… holy Hannah, Stockwell Day? Oh, come on!

Continue…

Megapundit: James Moore, son of Trudeau?

By selley - Friday, June 27, 2008 at 1:48 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Don Martin on Gomery’s comeuppance; Susan Riley on the cabinet shuffle; Richard Gwyn on the Green Shift.

Stuck in the past
Some of us, apparently, haven’t quite gotten past David Emerson’s floor-crossing and the fact that Michael Fortier isn’t an MP.

If Fortier and Emerson awoke today with a burning sensation all over their bodies—less painful than white phosphorous, say, but not by much—it may have something to do with Susan Riley‘s piece in the Ottawa Citizen. She portrays Fortier as an idly rich, over-entitled, unelectable layabout who exacerbates Stephen Harper’s contempt for the democratic process in appointing him with his unconvincing promises to run in an election if and when a riding with a “winning profile” is located. Emerson’s personality fares slightly better, but his CV doesn’t: he stands accused of “negotiat[ing] a flimsy truce on softwood lumber” and, in his previous Liberal life, “putting the brakes on Stéphane Dion’s environmental ambitions” (Aha! So he’s why it’s so difficult to make priorities!) This is all several feet over the top, particularly Riley’s bizarre talk of “class loyalty” affecting the appointments, but we sure loved reading it!

Continue…

Is that a backbencher, or just a bureaucrat: Liveblogging the cabinet shuffle

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 10:21 AM - 0 Comments

10:02:32 AM
Well, I’m here at the momentary nexus of the Ottawa political universe, sitting in the shade outside Rideau Hall listening to Mike Duffy explain for what I’m sure is the nineteenth time this morning that, contrary to our seeming omnipotence, we (the media) don’t actually know anything. But that’s not going to stop us from spending the first part of the morning speculating wildly as to what will happen at 11am, and the rest of the day pretending that we knew it all along.

I’m here a little early, I suppose—the ministers won’t start rolling up for another half hour or so, but given my notorious ability to get lost on a one-way street, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t end up wandering the grounds of Rideau Hall forlornly until I was accidentally shot by the Governor General’s Foot Guards. Hey, at least they don’t have Tasers.

Speaking of the GG, she—or rather, her driver—nearly ran me over as I was walking up the driveway. I didn’t realize ’til afterwards that it was her behind those tinted windows. Luckily, she was going about 5 miles an hour, so even though I was lost in the music (yes, I was wearing an iPod of Death), I didn’t wind up the first casualty of the shuffle. That title’s still open, Helena!

Oh, I kid.

Continue…

The job for Jim

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, June 20, 2008 at 7:50 PM - 0 Comments

This story should put the kibosh on all that speculation of a major cabinet shuffle in the works – one that would see Jim Prentice and Jim Flaherty switch jobs. This was always an awful idea. Flaherty’s been a big-spending mess of a Finance minister, but Prentice would almost certainly be worse: at Industry, he has taken a series of decisions at Industry that can only be described as anti-market, anti-consumer, anti-competition, and anti-trade – which makes him a favourite with the current crop of Tories, who praise his “pragmatism.” 

On the other hand, there is still the matter of replacing the departed Maxime Bernier at Foreign Affairs. My suggestion: Jim Prentice. Everything that makes him wrong for an economic portfolio – the disdain for fixed principle, the concern for appearances, the reflexive triangulation – makes him the perfect diplomat. He’s a “safe pair of hands,” as they say, and is known to enjoy Harper’s confidence: Foreign capitals could be sure he spoke for the government. It would be a fitting promotion for a minister who has performed well politically, but who should be kept far, far away from the economic levers.

CODA: And for Industry? It’s obvious: chair of the Commons Industry committee, the former Conservative Industry critic, James (Jim) Rajotte.

A double shot of At Issue

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, May 30, 2008 at 6:26 PM - 0 Comments

May 27	May 29

Here's a thought: why don't we just pick the best people for the job?

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, May 30, 2008 at 3:56 PM - 0 Comments

In the wake of the Bernier debacle, talk has turned to the inevitable cabinet shuffle. It’s billed as a chance, not just to replace Bernier at Foreign Affairs, but to relaunch the government after the serial embarrassments of recent weeks – the NAFTA memo, RCMP raiding Conservative headquarters, etc. etc. It would, however, be the third such relaunch in a little over two years in office; if all that is achieved is to move the same familiar faces a few feet this way or that around the cabinet table, it may succeed only in reminding people of how thin the Tory ranks really are. What’s needed is not so much a shuffle as new cards, drafting in some of the brighter members of caucus who have been left to languish on the back benches or in junior ministerial posts. That can’t happen so long as the choice of ministers is left to the spoils system – racial, sexual, and especially regional – that cabinet government has become in this country.

In few other democratic countries is such a rigid system of quotas imposed, calculated down to the last decimal point — what percentage of cabinet goes to Quebec, how many women, and so on. The press is as much to blame as anyone. Cabinets are scrutinized not, as in other countries, for what they reveal about the governing party’s ideological direction, or for what this or that appointment might mean for a particular department. Why should they be? Parties don’t stand for anything, and the prime minister makes all the important decisions anyway. So instead it’s all fun with figures.

Cabinet posts in this country are not, as they are elsewhere, opportunities for able people to serve their country. They are gifts to be offered up to this or that region or interest group to buy their votes. The perverse consequence: the fewer MPs a region elects, the more cabinet ministers it is awarded. Quebec may have relatively few Conservative MPs, but they are nearly all guaranteed a cabinet post at some point. Whereas MPs from BC and Alberta, where the party is hip-deep in talent, can pretty much buy a lottery ticket for all the chance they have of being picked. 

It’s exactly this kind of process that resulted in Maxime Bernier being installed at Foreign Affairs: a process that, so long as it remains, only sets us up for the next hasty shuffle. Perhaps it’s time we started fishing at the deep end of the talent pool.