01.10.2017 08:37 AM

Trudeau™ cabinet shuffle: who’s up, who’s down? Vote now, vote often! Highly-scientific poll™!

All of Southern Ontario is preoccupied with a big honkin’ snowstorm, so I wager not too many Real Folks™ in the Vote-Rich™ Centre of the Universe™ care.  But there’s a cabinet shuffle up Ottawa, this morn, and there’s lots of (looks like informed) speculation to be seen.

My only reaction: I’ve been a Stephane Dion fan for a long, long time.  I will be shocked and disappointed if he is booted out of cabinet entirely.  Four reasons.

One, that’s not how you treat a former Liberal leader.  Two, it adds to the unhelpful sub rosa narrative that Justin Trudeau™ may nurture leadership grudges (cf. go ask Deborah Coyne, David Bertschi, Martin Cauchon, Martha Hall Findlay, Joyce Murray, et al.).  Three, if Comrade Donald Trump is the problem, is Russia-hater Chrystia Freeland the solution? Four, that’s not how you treat a former Liberal leader.

Anyway, a Trudeau™ shuffle kind of doesn’t matter a whole lot.  As with Stephen Harper, the face of this government is entirely Justin Trudeau™.  It’s impossible to (a) think of his logical successor or (b) a superstar in cabinet beside him. He’s it.

What’s your take? Vote twice, vote now!


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29 Comments

  1. ABB says:

    The duds have to be cleaned out, once a year at minimum. Backbenchers need to see some faint hope for their own futures. There are lots of sycophants from which to choose.

  2. BlueGritr says:

    I would venture to say that PM Justin still harbours very deep leadership grudges. Martin Cauchon, Martha Hall Findlay, and Joyce Murray would all sparkle in senior cabinet positions. But the youngster is still finding his feet, and I’m sure heavily relying on Butts and Telford for his every orchestrated move.

    • Tim says:

      For one thing Cauchon and Martha Hall Findlay aren’t MP’s. However, with this shuffle there will now be open seats in Montreal and Toronto if either one wants to dip their toe back in the water.

      • BlueGritr says:

        Point is, Cauchon and Martha Hall Findlay weren’t made welcome to run in 2015. This divide — old guard bumped to the sidelines and the favourable treatment of the new guard — might pose an internal problem down the road for Justin should the Liberals slide steeply in the polls.

    • Bill Templeman says:

      Agree, BlueGritr. Keeping Joyce Murray on the shelf as a parliamentary secretary and out of cabinet is like hiring Connor McDavid then assigning him to the Marlies. Even the Leafs would not do that, but Trudeau is doing exactly that.

  3. BlueGritr says:

    Next to be moved further down the bench: Garneau and Brison.

  4. P. Brenn says:

    why doesnt Mcguinty get a shot here

  5. dave constable says:

    I mentioned that I thought Navdeep Bains an effective minister and solid speaker in the house. I’ll just add a name that I think has done well. Bardish Jagger, the House leader! She was pushed into the role suddenly, and I think she has done a pretty fair job.

  6. Charlie says:

    Like I said in yesterday’s post, Mihychuk is out.

    John McCallum was a surprise to me. I’ve never met a minister more enthusiastic about his/her file. Ambassador to China would be a perfect fit for him and I’m glad he’s getting that post. He was a terrific Minister of Immigration.

    Dion seems like he was pushed out. His departure should have been seen coming but the lack of details says something.

    What they hell is Monsef still a minister? She should have been given the boot too. It absolutely irks me as a Liberal that we’re choosing to reward her incompetence. She’s going to quickly become a hated figure in Ottawa if she continues to benefit from being a favoured figure of the PM — by all sides. This one is a mistake in opinion.

    Chrystia Freeland; probably one of our best foreign/global affairs Minister to date. I’m a big fan and look forward to seeing more of her in a prominent role.

    Karina Gould should have been in cabinet in 2015; a lot of people had her pegged for a ministerial role. So its not totally a surprise. She’s gonna be another Chrystia Freeland-like figure in the Liberal party.

    Champagne was inevitable for cabinet. Popular, well liked by the PM and, well, Quebec.

    Ahmed Hassen is a surprise. While he is a qualified professional lawyer who will no doubt tackle the position with competence, I can’t help but feel there were other more experienced MPs who should have had this post first. A rookie in another key portfolio doesn’t seem wise. Nevertheless, I’m willing to give him a chance.

    This is part 1 of a 2 part shuffle for 2017. More to come this summer for sure.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Charlie,

      Monsef got sandbagged by her own file. The big errors came from elsewhere than her mouth. There is a recognition there and that’s why she is still in cabinet. She deserves a second chance after being handed a pig. She is probably the next Rona.

      • Vancouverois says:

        Hardly. Monsef was indeed handle a bad file… but she still handled it badly.

      • Charlie says:

        While I agree with your assertion on her being sandbagged, I disagree with the second chance conclusion.

        She was given a particularly important file for a rookie MP and was given bad guidance by the PMO; thats on senior staff. But she is still responsible for the communications and her interaction with other parliamentarians. Whether its in the Democratic Reform portfolio or Status of Women, she has shown that she just wasn’t up to the task. Thats not a condemnation per se, but a recognition that some people aren’t cabinet material.

        What retaining her in cabinet does is a) it rewards sub-par performance, b) it disregards the number of other capable men/women who sit in the Liberal caucus and could potentially be much better communicators and c) it portrays Monsef as a being a beneficiary of preference by the PM.

        The Liberal government has done an astounding job at giving people chances and actually seeing great results. Demoting Monsef to S.o.W is like saying, “you had a chance, it didn’t work out, but here’s a token position so as not to hurt your feelings”. Given how Stephane Dion was seemingly unceremoniously removed and Mihychuk got straight up kicked out of cabinet, its odd that he would retain the one Minister who had the most public controversy.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Charlie,

          I take your point. But governments are notorious for not coming through when all of opposition Ottawa and the press are screaming for blood. I go back to Rona who was so-so in several of her portfolios and she was never dropped by Harper. That’s, IMHO, a tradition that continues here.

          However, it’s also a useful interregnum between now and the next shuffle. That’s significant as well.

  7. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    There was a lack of wisdom and ingrained gratitude as far as Dion is concerned. He should have been made Deputy Prime Minister, at the very least.

  8. billg says:

    Guess that’s exactly how you treat an ex Liberal Leader when your a cold blooded steely eyed Prime Minister.
    Sunny Ways Mr Dion.
    How exactly does Ms Monsef keep a job in cabinet but someone as experienced and qualified as Mr Dion is shown the door.
    I cant wait until Canada is rid of this dictatorial style leadership.

    • MississaugaPeter says:

      Dion. Need I say it again. O.K. I will. Too old.

    • BlueGritr says:

      Politics is a blood sport. The PM (his senior advisors) showed a ruthless side, and that’s good. Can’t effectively govern without being ruthless. And to hell with the mantra: Real Change. You do what you gotta do.

  9. Kevin says:

    So many people say that Dion’s move was a demotion. Have to admit I see it completely differently – to me it’s a reward. He was never comfortable in politics, he was pressed into service as an intellectual Quebec federalist to put forward Canada’s case in answer to Quebec nationalists, and he did a fantastic job of it. He’s put in his time, now he gets to go to the EU and Germany where his eloquence and world view will be right at home, and he can do it all in French. If I were him I’d feel that I had died and gone to heaven.

  10. Kelly says:

    Monsef’s biggest problem was a concerted desperate race baiting attack by a conservative political network that knows their party won’t govern for 100 years once we bring in PR and their seat totals shrink permanently to 30% of the house. As for Dion, I would have loved his expertise in the Democratic Reform portfolio as well as something ceremonial for his service but his problem is he doesn’t speak English well enough to communicate with most of English Canada and certainly not with the incoming Washington wrecking crew. That may be a simplistic, superficial analysis but simplistic and superficial is what we are dealing with now.

  11. pat says:

    I miss Stephan Dion. Not to begrudge Freeland, and I’m certain she’ll bring an impressive level of competency to her new portfolio, but Dion is a gentleman, and an intellectual, is dignified, and exemplifies the best of Canadian Values. We are better for his service, and he played an important role in Canada’s narrative, and clearly for the better.

  12. PJH says:

    For all his loyal years of service to the LPOC, and the Canadian people……and this is how the man is treated?……
    I suspect your former boss, M. Chretien, would not have treated a former Liberal leader, longtime cabinet minister, and longtime MP in such a shoddy fashion….
    I’m rather disappointed in PM Trudeau….but not particularly surprised……I just wonder which “eminence grise” will be next on the chopping block…..
    I thank M. Dion for his years of dedicated and loyal service to the people of Canada.

    • Terence Quinn says:

      I don”t think Dion was thrown under the bus. He has been offered a very senior position in Europe and is taking his time to reflect on it, which is just like Dion. He is a thinker and an intellectual.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Terence,

        In the real political world, that’s called window dressing, prior to the big stall, to see if Dion will finally bite.

  13. Bill Malcolm says:

    Dion was supposed to have a brain, but within two weeks of assuming the FM (or Global Affairs or whatever some genius product placement agency calls it now) portfolio, apparently knew so little about the actualities of the war in Syria or any of the other US assaults on the world that he repeated the Grade 9 summary handed to him by bored pubic servants who assembled some White House Press briefing clippings in a folder. As if that were the God’s honest truth on anything. He then became highly grumpy when anyone asked him questions. 100% utterly useless. The man became bewildered in his job.

    In order to double down on the neocon foreign policy and neoliberal trade policies where sovereignty is thrown to the four winds when business complains, we get Freeland as FM. Seeing as she is banned from Russia for her Ukrainian views, to cheers from the military-industrial policy crowd intent on surrounding Russia and starting war, Canada has given Russia a dilemma – is she now allowed to visit Russia as an official Canadian government representative? Will Vlad the Impaler back down? Maybe, but it won’t matter if she is allowed to visit, she won’t be listened to. Not one bit. Useless choice as FM then.

    I have little time for Putin and even less for the oligarchs/CIA running the US. We need a Canadian foreign policy not beholden to either of these lying propaganda-spewing countries. And if you think the US is/has been all sweetness and light, your reading is decades behind. Catch up. Why we have to follow US policies in Canada like good little boys is beyond me. Wait till Trump phones up the Hair and tells him to dump Freeland. That’ll be funny as our coterie of wimps in charge wobble around wondering what to do.

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