Minor shuffle held surprise

Obviously, Premier Brad Wall has discerned something in Kevin Doherty that hasn’t been entirely obvious to the rest of the province during the latter’s tenures as Culture and Recreation minister and most recently at Advanced Education.

Heading into an election with Saskatchewan’s financial picture cloudy at best, the premier on Thursday selected his friend with relatively little political experience to head what arguably is the government’s most important portfolio, bypassing more proven performers such as Economy Minister Bill Boyd and Saskatoon’s Don Morgan, who has shown a deft touch in tricky portfolios and earned a deserved reputation as Mr. Fix-it.

“Kevin Doherty has been very involved in the budget process as a member of the Treasury Board,” Premier Wall said in a news release announcing his somewhat surprising choice of finance minister. “This year he played an important role dealing with our budget challenges so we could deliver a balanced budget without raising taxes.”

Unless it was Mr. Doherty’s brainchild as Advanced Education Minister to revamp Saskatchewan’s graduate retention tuition rebates to a non-refundable tax credit as a way to save money in a tough budget year, it’s pretty difficult to understand singling him out from the others on the Treasury Board to be rewarded with such a plum posting, albeit one that comes with heavy responsibilities.

Certainly it is wise of the premier to shuffle the cabinet less than a year after the last one to give his new finance minister at least some time to settle into the post and continue preparations for the next budget cycle knowing that, barring some unexpected hitch in the next election, the public would expect from Mr. Doherty the same kind of steady hand that outgoing Finance Minister Ken Krawetz displayed this year crafting a spending plan in the midst of falling oil revenues.

It was also wise of Mr. Wall to name veteran Don McMorris as the new deputy premier to replace Mr. Krawetz, who becomes the premier’s legislative secretary for Saskatchewan-Ukraine Relations and will be available to advise his replacement about the intricacies of the Finance job he held for five years.

As cabinet shuffles go, Thursday’s certainly doesn’t count as a major change, with Scott Moe moving from Environment to replace Mr. Doherty in Advanced Education, while cabinet newcomer Herb Cox moves in to take over at Environment, SaskWater and the Water Security Agency.

With 15 of the 18 cabinet positions unchanged, Mr. Wall is mostly sticking with the team that he said a year ago is working to maintain his “growth agenda,” but came under fire from Opposition Leader Cam Broten, who said it reflected a “lack of bench strength” on the government side.

Given that the next provincial election is expected in April, the ministers in new portfolios will have but 11 months to learn the ropes. Unless unexpected events thrust them into having to take decisive action in the interim, it will be tough not only for the public to assess their performance but also for the premier who appointed them.

The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper’s editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.