Cabinet features seven newcomers,
New cabinets are closely analyzed for what governments intend to do next. They are also filled with revelations about what governments won’t do again.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” has been given a second chance to appreciate his good fortune and all the people he has around him.
That’s where the cinematic metaphors end, however. While Trudeau’s first cabinet swearing-in could have been filmed on a movie set in 2015, this re-elected government didn’t shoot for big, shiny displays of newness.
The 2019 sequel, in keeping with the new minority status, put a more modest face on the second Trudeau government. Ministers didn’t walk into Rideau Hall en masse on Wednesday, waving at the cameras. They arrived instead individually, families and children in tow as they walked into the building.
Too much Trudeau in the first version of his government? There’s a co-star now: deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, who also takes on a job — intergovernmental affairs — that the prime minister initially kept for himself in the early days.
There’s also a lot more of a spotlight on the team, with a mix of seasoned veterans (10 ministers kept the jobs they had before the election) and a sprinkling of seven newcomers to keep the story fresh.
If you thought the first Trudeau government was a little too focused on events abroad, this new cabinet has lots of jobs with a domestic focus. There’s even a minister for “middle class prosperity” — Ottawa MP Mona Fortier, one of the cabinet newcomers — to underline that this Trudeau government really, honestly, is committed to concerns close to where most Canadians live.
At the recent post-election caucus meeting in Ottawa, many Liberals reported that voters weren’t aware of what the previous Liberal government had done, whether on climate change, reducing poverty or relieving families’ tax burdens.
Expect this new Trudeau team to do a little more talking about what it’s accomplished, rather than what it is or what its government looks like. (No one uttered the words “because it’s 2019” at Rideau Hall on Wednesday.)
The ghost of one unfortunate cabinet shuffle lurked in the background of Wednesday’s swearing-in — the now-infamous January one in which Jody Wilson-Raybould was ejected from her justice minister’s job, setting in motion the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
No cabinet ministers were controversially dumped or demoted on Wednesday. For the sake of stability — not to mention no more WilsonRaybould-style dramas — ministers in many of the big posts stayed in place. Bill Morneau stays in Finance; Carolyn Bennett remains in charge of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Marc Garneau stays at Transport. To compensate for the loss of Ralph Goodale, the also-solid former Toronto police chief Bill Blair has been slid into Goodale’s old job at Public Safety.
Moreover, there were rewards for ministers who had been shuffled downward in the past, but who had been good sports about it, notably Mélanie Joly, who went from high-profile Heritage to low-profile tourism in the first mandate. Joly is back on the upward career ladder with a move to Economic Development, a crucial job if Trudeau puts some regional dollars into his efforts to purchase national unity.
Another ghost is conspicuous in its absence from this new Trudeau cabinet. There’s no more minister of Democratic Reform to remind either Trudeau or Canadians of the 2015 promise he didn’t keep to overhaul the electoral system.
Instead, this Trudeau cabinet has been built around the recognition that Liberals have to work with the dysfunctional system in which they find themselves, in particular a minority government.
Trudeau’s choice of a new Government House Leader, Pablo Rodriguez, shows that Liberals recognize they will have to work more collaboratively in the House. Rodriguez brings two traits to that task that his predecessor, Kitchener’s Bardish Chagger, did not have. Rodriguez is fluently bilingual, which means he can negotiate with the resurgent Bloc Québécois. He has also experienced defeat — personally, and as part of the Liberal team — and has sat on the opposition benches. This gives him, and any other Liberals who have sat in those lessprized seats in the Commons, a bit more empathy when dealing with parties across the aisle.
Shortly after the election a month ago, Trudeau held a news conference in which he declared that Canadians had given him a lot to think about. His new cabinet is a reflection of that thinking — about lessons learned, especially in the realm of what he shouldn’t do again.