Justin Trudeau shuffles cabinet, Jane Philpott takes over as Treasury Board president

TheStar.com
Jan 15, 2019
Bruce Campion-Smith, Tonda Maccharles, and Alex Ballingall

OTTAWA--Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will huddle with his cabinet this week -- refreshed in a Monday shuffle -- to plot strategy and priorities for the months leading up to fall election.

The two-day strategy session in Sherbrooke, Que. will be the first gathering for the new cabinet that now has Toronto-area MP Jane Philpott in a key role to oversee government operations and new ministers in charge of veterans affairs, Indigenous services and justice.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejigged his cabinet Monday morning in Ottawa.

Trudeau called Philpott a “natural choice” for the role of President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government, the third cabinet spot held by the MP for Markham-Stouffville following stints in health and Indigenous services.

But as Monday’s shuffle confirmed Philpott’s rising star, Trudeau sought to dispel speculation that Jody Wilson-Raybould -- moved to veterans affairs from justice in the shuffle -- had been demoted. He called the veterans affairs post a “deep and awesome responsibility” and that Wilson-Raybould was well-suited to the task.

“She is extraordinarily capable of delivering on this file that is one of the core delivery mandates that the federal government has,” Trudeau told reporters.

Wilson-Raybould told reporters said she was “honoured” to take up her new post, and not disappointed. “I would say there is no world in which I would consider working for our veterans of Canada a demotion.”

She later took the unusual step of releasing a lengthy statement defending her record as justice minister, a role she took on following the Liberals election in 2015. It was a response, she said, to the “many questions and inquiries” about why she was no longer justice minister.

“There is very little, if anything, in my mandate letter we have not done or is not well under way to completing, and we have also achieved much beyond it,” she said in her statement.

In Monday’s other moves, David Lametti, an Oxford, Yale and McGill grad and former law professor at McGill University, took on justice, Seamus O’Regan moved to Indigenous Affairs from veterans affairs, and Bernadette Jordan was named Minister of Rural Economic Development, a new portfolio.

Philpott, a physician first elected in 2015, was vice-chair of the central agency and was seen as best able to take over the post left vacant by Scott Brison, who announced last week that he would step down from cabinet and not run again in the October election.

Penny Collenette, an adjunct law professor at the University of Ottawa who worked in the prime minister’s office under Jean Chrétien, praised Philpott’s appointment.

“She’s known to be highly competent and respected. It’s very unusual to have, in one mandate, one minister with three portfolios. That is a very high load. That demonstrates her flexibility,” Collenette said.

The shuffle ticks some political boxes. Lametti’s role as justice minister gives a Quebec MP a high-profile post. Jordan’s appointment puts a cabinet focus on rural issues for the Liberals. She will be tasked with developing a national strategy for rural development as well as plans to extend broadband internet to rural areas.

Trudeau said her appointment shows his government is taking a “new approach” to rural issues.

“That’s smart politics. It sends a very clear message to (Conservative Leader) Andrew Scheer that the Liberal party is prepared to battle hard in the rural ridings,” Collenette said.

Naming Jordan, a Nova Scotia MP, also ensures the province continues to have a voice at the cabinet table by filling the vacancy left by Brison’s departure.

And Monday’s changes give the cabinet parity-plus -- 18 women versus 17 men, plus the prime minister.

However, there were questions around the decision to change ministers atop Indigenous services and veterans affairs just months before an election. Trudeau himself acknowledged these are two areas where the federal government directly delivers services and yet the cabinet shuffle will involve some disruption and delay to the initiatives underway in each department.

Trudeau defended his moves, stressing that Indigenous services and veterans affairs files are two of his government’s highest priorities and require a deft touch -- which he said both Wilson-Raybould and O’Regan have.

“Seamus’s compassion and advocacy will help us as we walk the road of reconciliation with our Indigenous partners,” Trudeau said. “I know he will work tirelessly.to bring about real change for Indigenous communities in this country.”

Despite challenges to the government’s climate change plan and efforts to get Alberta oil to market, Monday’s moves left in place Environment Minister Catherine
McKenna and Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi, who just took on that portfolio last summer. Finance Minister Bill Morneau also remains to deliver one last budget before the election.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said Morneau should have been ditched for failing to rein in government spending and make good on the Liberals’ vow to balance the budget.

And he accused Trudeau’s government of failing to do more to get Alberta oil to offshore markets. “The number one thing he could do right now to grow the rural economies is to allow resource development to go ahead,” Poilievre told reporters.

“Today was an opportunity for the prime minister to change course from these failures. He has failed to fix his failures,” he said.

Philpott became the first-ever Indigenous Services minister when she was shuffled from the health portfolio in the summer of 2017. The new department was created to oversee responsibilities of the former Indigenous and Northern Affairs department, as well as some services previously provided by Health Canada.