Harper’s man at Defence
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet shuffle on Monday, though it involved only three members, is a major shakeup for his government. Rob Nicholson, after barely a year and a half at National Defence, is off to Foreign Affairs, replacing the suddenly departed John Baird. Pierre Poilievre will take over at Employment, thus freeing up Jason Kenney for Defence.
Mr. Nicholson is a dependable if uninspiring choice, a parliamentarian with much experience at senior levels of government and no disasters under his watch. He’ll steer a steady course at Foreign Affairs, at least until the election due later this year. Mr. Poilievre, on the other hand, has never before held such a major cabinet post, and takes over at Employment at a time when job losses are very much a front- page issue for Canadians — an assignment for which his chief qualification would appear to be his unswerving loyalty to the prime minister.
It’s Mr. Kenney’s appointment that makes this shuffle intriguing. The Calgary MP has proven to be one of the best managers Mr. Harper has in his government. Time and again, Mr. Kenney has been given difficult files and handled them competently. Since 2007, as Minister of Multiculturalism (a portfolio he stills holds), he has served as the government’s ambassador to Canada’s varied ethnic communities, with much success. He tackled Citizenship and Immigration next, to generally favourable reviews, dealing with issues as diverse and complicated as American war resistors claiming asylum in Canada to clearing up the backlog of unprocessed applications. At Employment, he stickhandled the Canada Job Grant past the provinces; if his reforms to the troubled Temporary Foreign Workers program have not been an unalloyed triumph, he has at least got it off the front pages.
Mr. Kenney’s move to National Defence is therefore revealing. He has served for years as the man Mr. Harper would trust to go into a messy situation and fix it. Despite the attention and praise the Tories heap on the military, the Armed Forces are badly underfunded at a time when they are being asked to take on missions all over the world. Recruitment and retention are constant concerns. There is an enormous backlog of equipment that must be acquired or replaced, now — through a procurement process that is, to be charitable, broken. Instead of being an electoral strength and policy success story for the Conservatives, the military may now actually be a liability.
Mr. Kenney is the right man to take on this challenge. He is a skilled enough operator to get military procurement back on track, or at least make a start. He is an effective enough politician to begin waving the flag for the Armed Forces again, helping to reverse some of the public relations damage the Tories’ once-favourite cause has done to them of late. Most of all, he has the confidence of the Prime Minister, which he will need in the months ahead.
Canada’s Armed Forces are contributing to the fight against ISIS in Iraq, reinforcing NATO in Europe and working to overhaul their capacity at home. Altogether, it is an enormous challenge. If it is encouraging that Mr. Kenny has been given the job, it is also a sign of how badly he’s needed.
Kenney is a skilled enough operator to get military procurement back on track, or at least make a start