Cabinet shuffle sign of Wynne strategy
New transport minister from area lacking train
At a joint press conference on Wednesday, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s eight rookie and newly assigned cabinet ministers declared as one that they did not feel as if they were being herded around the alarmingly listing deck of the RMS Titanic. “No!” they cried. Seriously! Stop asking!
At the very least, they are in with a chance. With cabinet stalwarts Deb Matthews, Liz Sandals and Brad Duguid having scarpered into lifeboats clutching stolen toddlers, it makes sense for Wynne to give a few new faces some increased exposure in the few months remaining before the writ drops. If several happen to be contesting especially tight races, well, we’ll just call that a coincidence.
The rookies are Brampton MPP Harinder Malhi, who gets status of women, Ottawa- Vanier’s Nathalie Des Rosiers, who takes over natural resources and for- estry, and Daiene Vernile of Kitchener Centre, who inherits tourism, culture and sport from new Treasury Board president Eleanor McMahon. The reassignments are Indira Naidoo- Harris ( Halton) to education, replacing Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough- Guildwood), who shifts to advanced education and skills development, and Steven Del Duca ( Vaughan), who moves from transportation to economic development.
Cambridge’s Kathryn McGarry, latterly of natural resources, replaces Del Duca at transportation. That could be a fun one.
Cambridge really, really wants a GO train; it would be an extension of the Milton line along existing tracks. The business case and the obstacles have been debated for at least 25 years. Most recently, however, they were debated on Monday in Cambridge, where McGarry appeared with Del Duca to promote the “Community Transportation Grant Program” — i. e., money to help municipalities create new public transportation partnerships for underserved areas.
There was no especially good reason to have the event in Cambridge. But there it was. And the headline in the Waterloo Region Record was not about the grants program. It was “GO train still a no- go for Cambridge.”
“I can’t specifically give you a guarantee today that I know exactly when GO trains will come to Cambridge,” Del Duca told reporters. “But I will say, in all of our conversations with ( track owners) CP and CN, we talk about not just what’s happening right now, but what needs to happen over the next number of years.”
In some bizarro world version of Ontario, Del Duca might have been demoted on Wednesday for his conduct at transportation: the Toronto Star caught him redhanded fiddling around with Metrolinx’s plans for new GO stations in a manner that benefited his riding. In real world Ontario, of course, that’s pretty much expected. And the “very delighted” mayor of Cambridge, Doug Craig, now very much expects his local MPP- cumTransportation Minister to move the GO train file along with a quickness.
“Kathryn McGarry has been a great supporter of Cambridge issues since she’s been an MPP and a cabinet minister,” he says. “The fact that she’s now a cabinet minister in transportation, which then leads us in a direction of GO train expansion to Cambridge, has made us all very feel supportive and happy.”
Cambridge is the sort of riding the Liberals have to hold if they’re going to pull off a miracle: it was blue for 20 years before McGarry took it in 2014. Craig predicts transportation in the Waterloo region in general, and to Cambridge specifically, will be a major election issue. “I think she’ ll be a very strong advocate (for GO rail),” he says. “She knows that the GO train expansion is crucial to the economic ( development) and t he transportation needs of the city of Cambridge.”
Indeed, she does: “I know how important GO service is for the people of Cambridge,” she said in a statement, “and our government will continue to look at ways to improve access to transit and transportation in communities across Ontario.”
On scores of occasions, Wynne has claimed to have learned from her and her predecessor’s mistakes, to have internalized what so infuriates many Ontarians about their government and to avoid such behaviour in future. At a minimum this would involve not spending vast sums of public money for explicitly political purposes during election campaigns. Sometimes t he money goes to things people can use: a subway extension ( however ill- advised) here, a much- needed ( but also long- needed) hospital there. Sometimes it’s literally flushed down the crapper. Always, it puts the lie to the Liberals’ self- regard as benevolent, evidence- based policy-makers.
I’m not saying the Liberals will promise GO service for Cambridge during the campaign. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. And I’m certainly not saying residents should take any such promise at face value: a month before the 2014 election, then- transportation minister Glen Murray promised two- way, all- day service on the Kitchener line by 2019. ( Try 2024 at the earliest.) But Cambridge commuters would be fools not to press their advantage, and there is no reason to believe the other parties won’t match any promises the Liberals make.
What I’m saying is it’s no way to build railroads. Alas, it’s the only one we know.