Trudeau completes major cabinet shuffle
Changes will split Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada into separate departments
OTTAWA— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled cabinet changes Monday that he said would reset the federal government’s “paternalistic, colonial” approach to Indigenous affairs in favour of eventual self-government for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.
The bigger-than-expected cabinet shuffle will, in the months ahead, create two departments out of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada — with two Toronto-area MPs in charge — and will eventually see legislation drafted to replace the Indian Act, government officials say.
And the Trudeau government is making new efforts to get the troubled inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) back on track because it is convinced the families don’t want to start over again.
“We are working very hard in support of the inquiry to make sure that it delivers on the important mandate it has to provide justice for the victims, healing for the families and to put an end to this ongoing national tragedy once and for all,” Trudeau said.
Carolyn Bennett (Toronto—St. Paul’s), who had sole responsibility for the sprawling department, will now be in charge of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. Her job is to draft new laws, policies and operational practices that will explicitly recognize the relationship of Ottawa to Inuit and Métis as well as First Nations people. The Indian Act, first enacted in 1876, does not mention Inuit and Métis. Bennett will handle the recommendations that come out of the MMIWG inquiry and continue to answer questions related to it in the Commons.
The day-to-day delivery to Indigenous peoples of real services — health, education, food security, housing and clean water — falls to another trusted Trudeau minister, Jane Philpott (Markham-Stouffville), who has the title of minister of Indigenous services.
Trudeau said the split was recommended by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples about 20 years ago. He said there will always be a role for Crown-Indigeneous affairs, but he hoped that by next spring new legislation to end the old department will be tabled, and that “within de- cades or a few generations” Indigenous people and governments will themselves deliver services to their communities.
Yet even as he touted a new approach to Indigenous concerns, Trudeau shut down any suggestion the federal government would ditch the name of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Trudeau had earlier stripped the name of Hector Langevin, a Macdonald cabinet minister who was a proponent of the residential schools policy, off the building housing the Prime Minister’s Office.
Both Philpott and Bennett praised the changes as historic, portraying the existing department structure as an impediment to the Liberal goal of resetting relations with Indigenous peoples.
The new direction was welcomed by Assembly of First Nations national Chief Perry Bellegarde who said it “signals a new approach to increasing action across our agenda.”
While Indigenous issues were the big focus of Monday’s shuffle, other moves signal the government’s attempts to bolster efforts in other areas.
Trudeau promoted Ginette Petitpas Taylor, a parliamentary secretary to finance, to step into Philpott’s role as health minister.
A francophone New Brunswicker, Petitpas Taylor now has the task of steering the marijuana legalization project.
She said Monday, “I have smoked pot on a few occasions when I was at university and that was it.”
The shuffle was prompted by the resignation of Newfoundland MP Judy Foote, who was the minister of public works.
Carla Qualtrough was named to take Foote’s place. She had been the minister of sport and persons with disabilities. She takes over a department wrestling to fix problems with the Phoenix pay system that has left bureaucrats without their salary. Problems with defence procurement are another perennial headache for the department.
Trudeau promoted his close friend Seamus O’Regan into cabinet to take the place of Kent Hehr as veterans affairs minister and associate minister of national defence.
The post combines both the symbolic — helping to represent the government at public commemorations — and a significant administrative role, overseeing a department that has been criticized for how it dispenses assistance to veterans, notably those who are ill and injured.
O’Regan sought help for alcohol abuse in 2015 — a problem Trudeau’s key campaign team was unaware of. On Monday, Trudeau pronounced him fit for office, and O’Regan himself declared that he “felt great.”
The cabinet shuffle serves as a reboot of the government, but sources say there is no plan to prorogue Parliament and bring in a new Throne Speech or agenda to outline shifting priorities. Much of the government’s attention remains focused on dealing with an unpredictable U.S. administration.