Jason kenney

The change Jason Kenney becomes the new minister of National Defence, taking over from Rob Nicholson, who becomes the new Foreign Affairs minister.

Mr. Kenney is the third Defence minister in the past 19 months. He leaves the post of minister of Employment and Social Development (formerly Human Resources and Skills Development Canada). But he continues to serve as minister for Multiculturalism, a position he has held since summer 2013.

Mr. Kenney has been, and remains, a key point man for the Conservative party on outreach to immigrant communities and new Canadians, and is important to the party’s hopes of winning swing ridings in some of Canada’s largest cities. The file Mr. Kenney walks into a department beset by problems ranging from a broken procurement system to a navy with a dwindling number of ships to put to sea. With a federal election scheduled for the fall, it remains to be seen if he can make any significant fixes to problems that have been building for years.

In an attempt to generate some good news, Mr. Kenney could be provided with at least one high-profile announcement during his tenure: The Conservative government is expected to give the green light to the purchase of new search-and-rescue planes. That project that has been stalled for years.

The new Defence minister will face a major problem with Canada’s navy, however. It will soon be without vessels capable of resupplying its warships at sea. He will have to approve some kind of interim capability — perhaps the leasing of commercial vessels — to do that job.

Mr. Kenny will also be overseeing Canada’s contribution to the war in Iraq. The mission is expected to be renewed in April for another six months.

In addition, the Conservative government has led the charge on rhetoric about the crisis in Ukraine. Defence Minister Rob Nicholson made headlines recently when he told Russia to “back off ” from Ukraine. NATO will be looking for some weight to put behind those words, in particular a troop contribution to the rapid deployment force it is bringing together. The minister Mr. Kenney, 46, is fluently bilingual. He was born in Ontario and raised in Saskatchewan, where he graduated from Notre Dame College. Prior to entering federal politics in 1997, he served as president and chief executive of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He was elected MP for Calgary Southeast in 1997 for the Reform Party and has been re-elected five times, most recently with 76% of the vote.

While new to the Defence portfolio, Mr. Kenney — as one of Stephen Harper’s most senior and trusted cabinet ministers — is certainly no stranger to many of the department’s important files.