Roundup: Neither a minor nor a major shuffle

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So there was a Cabinet shuffle, and while not major, it was a little bigger than some may have anticipated. Five new ministers have entered the fray, which expands things somewhat, but still isn’t into later Harper territory. Some of the changes are not unexpected – Joly being moved to tourism while still keeping official languages is a bit of a demotion from the Heritage file that she garnered so much criticism from, particularly in Quebec, on things like the Netflix file. Some of the changes are pretty political – moving Sohi from infrastructure to natural resources in order to have the Alberta minister on the pipeline file is pretty naked on its face. Bill Blair to border security (plus organized crime reduction) are two files that the government wants a stern face on to make it look like they’re taking action. Some of the additions, however, are a bit mystifying, like a minister for seniors? Really? Is this not just a pandering exercise to a voting demographic rather than a file with particular challenges that need addressing? And some of these questions won’t be answered right away, because the mandate letters won’t be available until later in the summer. Here is the updated Cabinet list including the existing ministers whose titles got modified, and here are profiles of the five new additions.

And then the reaction. Blair’s promotion may send the signal that they’re taking the border situation seriously, but it also can look like they’re a) caving to critics, b) admitting that this is a security and not a humanitarian situation, c) putting border security alongside fighting organized crime in the same portfolio risks conflating the two in the eyes of those who are convinced that these irregular migrants are really all criminals and terrorists. Trudeau apparently lured Blair into politics on the promise of fighting the number one enemy of public security – fear. I’m not sure that putting him in this new role fights fear or reinforces it.

In terms of analysis, Paul Wells notes both that putting Blair into Cabinet is a bit of a poke in the eye to Doug Ford, given that they were nemeses during the Fords’ years in Toronto City Hall, and that this new Cabinet is one built to survive the coming storms until the next election (along with the observation that Trudeau seems to have demoted himself by stripping away the intergovernmental affairs responsibility and giving it to Dominic LeBlanc). Kady O’Malley makes five observations about the shuffle, while Susan Delacourt looks at the shuffle from the perspective of reacting to the recent Ontario election.

Good reads:

  • Catherine McKenna met her new Ontario counterpart, who stared her down to say he wasn’t going to accept a carbon tax. She asked what his plan was – no reply.
  • The Americans are launching a trade investigation into uranium imports – which Canada is a top exporter of.
  • On the first day of the Council of the Federation meeting, they met with some Indigenous leaders, but not all as some chose to stay away.
  • The opioid crisis could start impacting on Canada’s life expectancy statistics.
  • A number of First Nations are in talks to buy an equity stake in the Trans Mountain pipeline. Will that embarrass the activists who claim to act on their behalf?
  • Polling data shows that Canadians’ trust in national security agencies is up – but many haven’t even heard of CSIS, or especially CSE.

Odds and ends:

Have you been hearing that the Queen was engaged in “brooch warfare” or “brooch trolling” with Trump? It’s all false, as this fact-check explains.

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