EX- CHIEF BLAIR AMONG HOPEFULS

A look at who could be in a Liberal cabinet, and some guesses at their positions.

FINANCE

Bill Morneau ( Toronto Centre)

The 52- year- old Morneau is a political newcomer but he is an experienced Bay Street figure. A safer choice might be former Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale, but Morneau’s face on the Liberal front bench would signal Justin Trudeau’s campaign commitment to “change.”

Morneau was executive chairman of Canada’s largest human resources services organization, Morneau Shepell. He is the former chairman of the C. D. Howe Institute and was a pension investment adviser to the Ontario minister of finance. He serves on Justin Trudeau’s economic council of advisers.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Marc Garneau ( Westmount — Ville- Marie)

At 66, Garneau was Canada’s first astronaut in space ( 1984) and returned twice more. He has been opposition critic for foreign affairs, international trade and La Francophonie; for natural resources and industry and science and technology. He resigned as executive vice- president of the Canadian Space Agency in 2005 to pursue a political career.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Andrew Leslie ( Orleans)

The obvious choice for the retired army lieutenantgeneral from Orleans, Ont., would be defence, but that might be too close to his old career, where he had fans and critics. He retired in 2011 as chief of transformation for the Canadian Forces.

Public Safety Canada, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is an unwieldy organization — responsible for the RCMP, the federal spy, border and correctional services and parole board — that might benefit from Leslie’s military experience and from his last mission to improve the armed forces’ efficiency and effectiveness.

In that portfolio, Leslie, 57, would sit on cabinet committee on foreign affairs and security alongside defence, foreign affairs and international development, which would still afford him a hand in high- level DND decision- making.

DEFENCE

Bill Blair ( Scarborough Southwest)

The recently retired Toronto police chief, in his early 60s, might be better utilized in a portfolio that doesn’t make him directly responsible for federal policing and domestic spying, but still gives him a meaty post and a seat on the cabinet committee in foreign affairs and security, where his policing experience would be useful.

ENVIRONMENT

Jody Wilson- Raybould ( Vancouver Granville)

Wilson- Raybould, 44, is a former Crown prosecutor, onetime regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations and former treaty commissioner. Recruited by Trudeau, she’d bring an important indigenous sensibility to a crucial — and some argue neglected — portfolio.