?
Incoming Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne promised during her campaign that as premier she would appoint herself agriculture minister.
Photograph by: Nathan Denette , THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO ? Incoming Premier Kathleen Wynne will give the daunting job of managing Ontario?s deficit-heavy finances to banker and former leadership rival Charles Sousa as she shapes a new cabinet Monday.
The afternoon swearing-in will also see Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi elevated to cabinet for the first time, as Minister of Labour, while Ottawa West-Nepean MPP Bob Chiarelli also takes a step up as he moves from infrastructure to the important, trouble-spot portfolio of energy.
Details of the new cabinet, obtained by various media outlets Sunday, show that Sousa, who helped hand Wynne the leadership victory at the convention last month, will take over finance from Dwight Duncan, who will officially resign his Windsor seat on Thursday.
Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, had expected Sousa would become finance minister after he dropped out following the leadership convention?s second ballot to support Wynne.
?Sousa shrewdly sort of positioned himself for that (portfolio), and he really raised his profile in this leadership race,? said Wiseman.
Former school board trustee Liz Sandals will become Ontario?s education minister, charged with trying to rebuild the Liberals? relations with teachers who are angry over having contracts imposed on them.
Sandals, who served as president of the Ontario School Boards Association before being first elected in Guelph in 2003, will take over as education minister from Laurel Broten, who had become a focal point of teachers? frustration with the government.
Broten is expected to remain in cabinet.
Insiders said Chiarelli, a former Ottawa mayor, will replace Chris Bentley ? he is to officially resign his London seat on Thursday ? and immediately be on the political hot seat when the legislature resumes next week. The opposition parties are expected to resume their demands for new hearings into the Liberals? decisions to cancel gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga at a cost of at least $230 million.
Chiarelli?s chance to play point man for the party on such a key file is one signal of peacemaking by Wynne. Chiarelli was a strong backer of Wynne?s toughest leadership rival, Sandra Pupatello.
Naqvi?s elevation is not a big surprise. The second-term MPP, who briefly considered a run at the leadership himself, is president of the Ontario Liberal Party. The 40-year-old MPP has a compelling personal narrative as an immigrant whose family left Pakistan because of political persecution and is considered a bright young light for the party.
Former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray, who dropped out of the Liberal leadership race just before the convention to support Wynne, will become minister of transportation and infrastructure.
Several insiders told The Canadian Press that Deb Matthews, who co-chaired Wynne?s leadership bid, will stay on as health minister and could also become deputy premier.
?The fact that she threw her support behind Wynne and had the prominent role she had in that certainly reinforced their bonding,? said Wiseman. ?In fact I can see Wynne asking Matthews: ?What do you want to do???
Wynne, who started calling ministers Sunday afternoon to inform them of their new jobs, had to balance everything from political egos to geographical concerns as she built the new cabinet.
Analysts say she had to take care of her leadership rivals for the sake of party unity, but fortunately for Wynne her two closest competitors ? Sandra Pupatello and Gerard Kennedy ? don?t have seats in the legislature and don?t have to be given plum posts.
Cabinet speculation started circulating the minute Wynne was crowned as Dalton McGuinty?s replacement at the leadership convention Jan. 26, especially on which loyal backbenchers could finally get promoted to the Liberal front rows, such as Sandals and Sudbury?s David Orazietti.
The premier-designate has promised to also find cabinet positions for leadership rivals Eric Hoskins and Harinder Takhar, even though Takhar supported Pupatello after dropping out of the leadership race.
Wynne already announced that in addition to being premier, she will also be sworn-in as agriculture minister to raise the Liberals? profile in rural ridings, where they were virtually wiped out in the 2011 election that reduced them to a minority government.
Wiseman called the agriculture decision a ?peculiar? move that would be unlikely to convince any rural ridings to vote Liberal in the next election.
The Conservatives said if Wynne wants to send the right signal that she?s ready to reduce the size and cost of government she will bring in a cabinet of 16 ministers, far fewer than the 22 McGuinty had before the leadership race.
?I think that would be a good start, something that we suggested long ago,? said Conservative critic Monte McNaughton.
However, some observers expect Wynne may actually increase the size of cabinet Monday as she rewards those who supported her and promotes backbenchers who can help put a new face on the governing party?s front benches.
Monday?s cabinet announcement will also reveal whether Ottawa-Vanier MPP Madeleine Meulleir, currently Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, will stay in cabinet. Like much of the Ottawa Liberal caucus, Meilleur backed Pupatello in the leadership race.
The New Democrats said they were taking a wait-and-see approach to the new cabinet, but expected to see a lot of familiar faces.
?Many of the people that are probably going to be in cabinet are going to be some of the same people that have been there before,? said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
THE CANADIAN PRESS and OTTAWA CITIZEN
? Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
?
?
?
?
?
?
Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ottawa/Naqvi+Chiarelli+jobs+Wynne+first+cabinet/7945954/story.html
brewers matt cain adastra holocaust remembrance day chesapeake energy dick clark death yom hashoah
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন