New job for Charlottetown MP

Sean Casey named parliamentary secretary for Fisheries and Oceans

The MP for Charlottetown has a new job.

On Friday, the prime minister’s office announced that Sean Casey would be the new parliamentary secretary for the minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. Casey has previously served as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Canadian Heritage, as well as the parliamentary secretary for the minister of Justice and Attorney General.

The minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard is also relatively new to the job. Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc out of this portfolio and appointed North Vancouver MP Jonathan Wilkinson as the new minister. LeBlanc is currently the minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Northern Affairs and Internal Trade.

Casey first heard the news Thursday afternoon.

“This will be a major learning curve for me, but so was my last role,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.

“I don’t come from and have never lived in a fishing community.”

Casey said his first step in the Casey new role will be

to speak with staff in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Coast Guard. He said he will then meet with stakeholders in the region.

“I have to go into this wholeheartedly and listen more than I speak and ensure that the relationships that need to develop in order to be effective are allowed to develop,” he said.

The minister for Fisheries, Oceans and the Coast Guard has typically been an MP from Atlantic Canada. Wilkinson represents a riding on Canada’s West Coast.

When asked if he felt the decision to appoint him to the parliamentary secretary post was made to allow for regional representation from the east coast, Casey said this was likely.

“I have no doubt that was in their thinking, although nobody has told me that,” he said.