KUDOS TO NOTLEY FOR SLIMMED-DOWN CABINET
With only 12 ministers, she restored the prestige of every one of the positions
The transition to an NDP government in Alberta, after 44 years of Conservative rule, has not been without its hiccups: an inappropriate fundraising reference here, a really inappropriate Instagram post (or two) there. But on one issue Premier Rachel Notley has knocked it out of the park: the cabinet.
I don’t mean by the usual indicators that most people assess cabinets nowadays: how many ministers were of which sex, or whether Calgary got enough seats, or the various other bits of head-counting that have taken the place of asking “who are these people, and what would they do with the offices they have been given?”
We don’t ask these questions much any more because cabinet ministers, as individuals, no longer matter much. When a thing really matters to us, like, say, a hockey team, we tend to resist the imposition of quotas, insisting on merit as the sole criterion. But when we know a thing is mostly for show — a corporate board, or a cabinet — well, then you might as well distribute the prizes evenly.
So it is a remarkably subversive thing that Notley has done, by appointing a cabinet of just 12 members. At a stroke, she has restored the prestige of every one of the positions she has filled. In a cabinet of 12, every minister matters; and if every minister matters, it is harder for any to ride in on the strength of their sex, ethnicity, region or other consideration.
Of course, a cynic might say she had no other choice, with the thinness of the talent pool available to her after the New Democratic Party’s shock victory. And indeed, the NDP caucus is unusually poorly stocked with people with relevant experience. But, looking at the list of ministers and their portfolios, is there really much to add?
In addition to the premier, there is: the minister of finance; four social ministers, health (and seniors), education, human services, and skills and innovation; three economic ministers, energy, agriculture and forestry, and transportation (and infrastructure); plus three others, justice, environment, and municipal affairs.
Contrast this to the cabinets that went before her, typically as much as twice the size. Or the cabinet in, say, Ontario, with 27 ministers. Seriously: what do all these people do all day? And now compare all these with the federal cabinet.
At its present population of 39 ministers, it is, so far as I am aware, the largest cabinet in the democratic world. (There are some countries in Africa with cabinets of 60 or 70, but they tend not to make the same claims to democratic governance.) They bear exotic titles like minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, or minister of state (sport), whose necessity is as unclear as their purpose. Some, such as minister for democratic reform, are clearly meant as a joke.
This is a wholly modern phenomenon. Before the government of Pierre Trudeau, the cabinet (strictly speaking, “the ministry”) had never exceeded 30 members. Lester Pearson built the modern welfare state with 26; Mackenzie King fought a Depression and World War with fewer than 20.
That, indeed, remains the norm among our contemporaries. The president of the United States of America somehow gets by with a cabinet of 15 (plus eight cabinetlevel officers); the prime minister of the United Kingdom, a comparatively plush 22. France, Germany, Italy and Japan are all somewhere in between.
It stands to reason that, in the course of squeezing 39 people into a cabinet requiring no more than half as many, some lowering of standards may be involved. Jobs are invented, places are found, not for work that needs doing, or even for talent that needs recognizing, but purely for the sake of “representativeness.” As the dimensions of representation increase, so does the least common multiple capable of accommodating them all, to the point that cabinet, as such, rarely meets any more.
But of course that is not the most insidious effect of cabinet bloat. Consider it from the perspective of your average government backbencher on the make. With 39 ministers out of a caucus of 159, that means odds of making it into cabinet are roughly one in four — provided no disqualifying event intercedes, such as a vote against the party line.
Actually, they’re rather better than that: with resignations, retirements and such, the number of MPs who have served in cabinet since the Conservatives came to power is closer to 60. More than any party whip, it is the lash of ambition that keeps MPs in thrall.
By contrast consider the lot of the backbencher in Britain. Even with a narrow majority such as David Cameron recently obtained, the odds of reaching cabinet in the life of this Parliament are more like one in 15 — one in 10 at the outside. Scores of Tory MPs know they will never make it to cabinet — so they put that thought aside, and find other ways to make their name.
Hence the private member’s bill put forward by independent MP Brent Rathgeber, which would limit the executive to appointing a cabinet of no more than 26. This does not seem onerous: it corresponds to the 20 actual federal departments, plus six federal agencies with ministers at their heads. In fact it ought to be possible to shrink cabinet even further.
Do we really need a minister of finance and a president of the Treasury Board? A minister of national defence and a minister of public safety? A minister of labour and a minister of employment and social development? A minister of transport and a minister for public works? Separate ministers for agriculture, fisheries, and natural resources, in addition to industry?
Perhaps Notley has cut too far. Perhaps we’ll find that 12 is too few for a provincial cabinet. But a federal cabinet of 20 seems easily sufficient.
Do we really need a minister of finance and a president of the Treasury Board?