I'm away from Queen's Park – because provincial politics does occasionally happen elsewhere in the province, too – so haven't been directly covering Dalton McGuinty's cabinet shuffle. But I do have a few quick thoughts on it:
» The most substantive change is probably the splitting of Energy and Infrastructure, and frankly it should have happened a long time ago. MEI was a super-ministry created to keep George Smitherman occupied, and by most accounts it was too much juggling even for him. The infrastructure side has badly suffered, impeding the government's ability to move forward with capital projects.
The Liberals' mistake, aside from creating MEI in the first place, was not splitting it last winter when they named Brad Duguid as Smitherman's long-term replacement. Now it looks like Duguid is being punished by losing a chunk of his responsibilities, when that doesn't actually seem to be the intention. Although the Liberals have all kinds of energy problems, very few of them are of Duguid's making. But at least as he tries to sort them out, he won't also be distracted by a whole other file.
» As for those who really are being demoted, John Gerretsen is the most obvious. That's getting a mixed reaction from Liberals, some of whom think he's just been left holding the bag for the eco-fees fiasco after an otherwise solid if unspectacular stint as environment minister. But McGuinty evidently felt it necessary to show that "bad mistakes have consquences," as one senior Liberal put it to me on Tuesday night, and moving Gerretsen was the easiest way to prove that.
Less obvious, but as far as I can tell not much less of a demotion, is Jim Bradley going from Municipal Affairs and Housing down to Community Safety. The reasons for this one are less clear, but there have been rumblings around Queen's Park that Bradley – despite his reputation as a Liberal stalwart – hasn't been a team player. One way or another, he seems to have gotten on the wrong people's nerves.
» Glen Murray's early months as a cabinet minister will be interesting to watch. Research and Innovation is not as senior a posting as some had expected, and as he may have hoped for, but it seems a decent enough fit. Murray is nothing if not an ideas guy, and he'll get to push forward various knowledge-economy schemes here.
The open question is what he'll be like around the cabinet table. Murray has never served in a cabinet before, and his background is as a municipal politician – where, as mayor of Winnipeg, his voice was the most important one. That won't be the case as a fairly junior minister. So while he's a very interesting guy to have a conversation with, he has the potential to get on his colleagues' nerves if he does more talking than listening.
» This is admittedly a pet peeve. But it baffles me why – if the government was in the mood to split up ministers' portfolios – aboriginal affairs remains under Chris Bentley's watch. The Attorney-General can talk all he wants about his commitment to the file, and he may well be sincere. But there's no way he can give it the attention a full-time minister would.
» It's easy to second-guess cabinet compositions, when you don't have to worry about all the dynamics at play – from regional representation to hurt feelings. But the one big mistake, it seems to me, was not finding a way to get Yasir Naqvi in there.
Most everyone in Liberal circles thinks Naqvi has a bright future. But if the Liberals lose next year's election, he'll go into the long slog of opposition with zero cabinet experience. McGuinty may not want to consider that possibility, but he's doing his party a disservice by not helping ensure there are people well-positioned to rebuild it if and when the time comes.
