Cabinet shuffle a meaningless ‘inside the Queensway’ event

KAMOURASKA, QUE.—On Sept. 26, 1975, I was a 23-year-old student reporter for Radio Carleton. I had just received an affiliate membership in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Our station was available only on campus, and was two months away from broadcasting on the FM band. And yet, I and the entire press corps was invited to Rideau Hall to attend the swearing-in of several ministers in the cabinet of Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau, notoriously reluctant to engage with the media, was available to anyone with a microphone or a pen. The reason was the cataclysmic resignation of finance minister John Turner on Sept. 9. The appointment of Donald Macdonald as his replacement was promoted as a major event, and Trudeau was playing nice with reporters to shore up the sinking fortunes of his government. Despite this shuffle and another one two years later, the Trudeau Liberals went down to defeat in the 1979 election to Progressive Conservative Joe Clark. Like so many shuffles before, it did nothing for the electoral fortunes of the government and was an event of interest solely to the “punditi,” as Larry Zolf called columnists, or political junkies inside the Queensway. So I predict it will be with the new, recycled cabinet of Justin Trudeau. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it takes years to master a portfolio, something these new ministers don’t have. I worked for Bob Kaplan, who was brilliant but accident prone. As a result, he stayed as solicitor-general in the 1980 Trudeau cabinet for four years. During that time, he got to know every nook and cranny of his complex ministry, and the psychology of those who inhabited it. This new cabinet has a total of seven new ministers, proclaimed as “new blood.” But what they really are is a bunch of neophytes. And to really understand how badly neophytes can screw up, we only have to look at the first Trudeau cabinet of 2015. Who could know that Judy Foote at public services and procurement would unleash the disastrous Phoenix pay system? Who could foresee Mélanie Joly would be a disaster at Heritage? And, as Marc Miller recently explained on The Herle Burly podcast, there was no real understanding back then about to manage boil water advisories on Indigenous reserves. The PMO’s objective last week was to put a fresh coat of paint on the 38-member focus group that is the federal cabinet. That number sums up the absurdity of managing in government. Forget the need for regional and gender balance: the sheer numbers are unworkable. When I was studying United Nations reform as a foreign policy adviser, I came across several analyses of group dynamics suggesting the limit of a functional board was 20, with 15 being preferable. As the UN Security Council was 15 members, expanding it, some said, would make it unmanageable. A cabinet at double that number is by its nature dysfunctional, and means no one has a real say and everything is run from the centre. Which is how this PMO likes it. My theory about David Lametti’s dumping was his refusal to toe the PMO line. Its insistence on appointing judges chosen for their backgrounds rather than their ability led to conflict between the Department of Justice and PMO, and to the paucity of appointments mentioned in the media. As for Marco Mendicino, despite his PMO-inspired prevarications about Paul Bernardo, he was collateral damage. Joly kept her job at Global Affairs because PMO runs foreign policy, and Chrystia Freeland is still finance minister because she and the PMO are on the same page: the distribution of wealth, rather than its creation, is the road to political success. And therein lies the problem of this government: there is no real interest in creating wealth, reducing taxes, or supporting the resource sector that generates so much of our GDP. Meanwhile, atop a cabinet of nobodies sits a prime minister who believes his capacity to campaign is more important than focusing on substance, or making decisions. When Justin Trudeau became prime minister, I assured skeptical friends he would surround himself with smart people whose judgment was better than his own. In this new cabinet, we have neither experienced ministers nor judgment in the PMO. It does not bode well for the country. Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a town councillor in Kamouraska, Que. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com. The Hill Times

Cabinet shuffle a meaningless ‘inside the Queensway’ event

In this new cabinet, we have neither experienced ministers nor judgment in the PMO. It does not bode well for the country.

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Cabinet shuffle a meaningless ‘inside the Queensway’ event

In this new cabinet, we have neither experienced ministers nor judgment in the PMO. It does not bode well for the country.

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