So I am still new to this whole blog thing and am posting a few documents I had sent to various people via email...those who endure my political rants…
I was out of the country when Harper’s cabinet was announced…it was slightly shocking to come home to…what bothers me in this article is the reasoning from the Conservatives….
(I’ve put some of my rants in brackets…) I’m not disagreeing with the article but merely am making political observations of my own…
Harper's cabinet choices called counter-intuitive
Canadian Press
Ottawa — Floor-crosser David Emerson and the unelected Michael Fortier weren't the only counter-intuitive appointments when Stephen Harper set about building his first Conservative cabinet. (Umm...appointing a minister who was not voted in as a Conservative and another who wasn’t even voted in at all!! Where’s the accountability??)
After all, a meat-packing plant in southeastern Alberta isn't the first locale that comes to mind when one contemplates Canadian immigration policy.
Nor would British Columbia's Fraser Valley, for all its poultry production, necessarily be top of mind when thinking about agriculture and the Canadian Wheat Board.
Alberta's oil patch has never been considered in the vanguard of Canadian environmental policy.
And a businesswoman from southern Ontario's tobacco-farming belt might not, at first blush, appear to have a natural affinity for social policy development.
"It does seem to be a theme, I agree," says Monte Solberg, the new immigration minister whose home base is Brooks, Alta., population 12,500.
"And I think there's a logic to it." (logic..i was open to this at first...if it was smart logic)
Solberg leads a cast of untried cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries who have been slotted into portfolios against the grain.
While a large meat-packing plant in Brooks that has attracted workers from across the globe makes Solberg's home town something of anomaly among smaller centres, he agrees his is not what anyone would call an ethnic riding.
Solberg says he was told that's one factor in why he got the immigration job. (he got the job of Immigration Minister because his riding is not ethnic?? I don't get it)
"It's important that you have somebody who can come into this and stand back at a critical distance, somebody who hasn't already had their ideas formed on these things and see it through a new set of eyes," Solberg said in an interview. (So since his riding does not see the immigration of minorities, that makes him a prime candidate for Minister? Because he comes from small and not so ethnic riding, he will have an open mind...unlike those other fools who have minorities in their ridings and may have sympathy for "them"...Is that what he really means? odd...)
"I think that's what is going to happen in many of these portfolios - not all of them - where there's no agreement on where we should head."
They include:
-Chuck Strahl, a one-time road contractor and forestry worker from Chilliwack, B.C., who takes over agriculture and the wheat board.
-Rona Ambrose, a sharp social policy critic and former intergovernmental affairs specialist who is now Canada's Edmonton-based environment minister. (Good bye Kyoto....)
-And Diane Finley, the tight-lipped MP for Haldimand-Norfolk with a business-oriented background who has the helm of the $30-billion ministry of human resources and social development.
Among parliamentary secretaries - a job seen as minister-in-waiting - are MPs from Alberta and Ontario assisting the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, a unilingual English Albertan aiding the francophonie and a retirement age gentleman from B.C. attached to status of women. (Oh my...)
Conservative officials say several of these odd-seeming combinations arose simply because there are secondary titles attached to particular ministerial secretaries.
But Jason Kenney, a white guy from Calgary, was tasked only with multiculturalism, Fort McMurray-Athabaska MP Brian Jean got transport, infrastructure and communities and Ed Komarnicki from Souris-Moose Mountain is the immigration secretary. (Maybe Jason can ask Monty for some advice on his fresh perspective on multiculturalism, since his advantage is coming from a non-diverse town...fresh perspective...)
Hugh Segal, the Tory senator who is helping Harper's government transition team, said some of the counter-intuitive selections are no accident. (No accident indeed...they meant to mess with your idea of how a government should work...men should clearly represent women's issues, and Jason Kenney should represent multicultural issues...)
Immigration is a case in point, he said. It's best not to have a minister from a riding full of newcomers. (So maybe the MP representing the status of women should come from a riding with the fewest women? That way they don’t have to be influenced by their constituents when leading the government...)
"You put the minister in a situation where his national obligations to get policy right are impacted by the local pressures, which always exist to accommodate people in close proximity," said Segal. (Riigghtt...So, here I was thinking that it was the job of a MP to balance leadership and the will of the people....pff...'local pressures in close proximity'...or better know as voters...)
It's an argument that Francisco Rico-Martinez, past president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, turns on its ear when he criticizes Solberg's appointment.
If a minister has a riding that is 40 per cent immigrant, "they tend to be careful about the images of what they do. This guy's not going to have that," said the Toronto-based advocate. (This guy doesn't have to care about what minorities think...HAHA... ‘so screw all of you’...great...what a wonderful government they are when they say they don't have to accountable to minorities)
"It doesn't matter what (Solberg) does at Immigration Canada, he's not putting at risk his re-election, in a way." (It doesn’t matter what he does?? Of course it does. I don't think the conservatives get what accountability really means...Or maybe they do...We should ask Fortier)
Rico-Martinez also wonders how an MP from a rural riding will be able to relate to undocumented newcomers, or family reunification issues - a criticism that extends to other new ministers.
One social policy analyst didn't want to go on record criticizing Finley, simply because she's such an unknown quantity. But he did express reservations.
"She certainly came from left field - or right field," said the veteran analyst.
"A critic would say this gives you an idea of how little regard the Conservatives give to social policy. Here she is inheriting a portfolio that is probably bigger than half of all the government." (At least they are going to wait a few months before cutting the program and at least entertained the idea of keeping social policies)
Scratching the surface on some of these new ministers does raise intriguing counter arguments.
Jean, for example, represents Canada's fastest-growing resource city in Fort McMurray. Who better to understand real and immediate transport and infrastructure demands?
And Segal argues that Finley isn't a complete social policy neophyte.
"She did a tremendous amount of work in rural Ontario - yes, from a business background - but around rural women, farming wives, small business on the farm: stuff that has quite a compelling social dimension."
That won't provide much comfort to advocates of maintaining the fledgling national day-care program of the former Liberal government, which falls under Finley's new super ministry.
The program's biggest flaw, said critics, was that it failed to address the needs of a parents in less urbanized areas.
If Finley is already being painted as a program cutter, Strahl at agriculture defies typecasting.
The Conservatives had a wealth of talent to choose from for the ministry - including Finley, the party's former agriculture critic - but threw yet another curve ball.
The argument goes back to avoiding a self-interested constituency leaning on the local champion, said Segal.
Agriculture policy must adapt to deal with alternative fuels, nutraceuticals, public health and disease prevention, issues that can "threaten people with established, existing interests," said the party strategist.(what? I don't get this statement by the "party strategist"? Chuck is a good choice for minister because Agriculture policy must adapt because there are issues that can threaten people with established, existing interests..?? I am not making a snide comment, I really don't get what direction the "strategist" was attempting)
"Maybe someone who comes from something other than the traditional production belt is in a better position to ask some of those questions." (OH...it's back to the whole....'I don't have a background in the issue so there for I am the best qualified to do the job'...got ya...sort of..)
The cabinet selections fit into what some business management gurus call adaptive rather than command-control structures.
"If Stephen Harper is trying to create a group of high-performing individuals with long-term potential, then putting them into portfolios where they don't have direct experience and then rotating them every two or three years would not be a bad strategy," said David Wheeler, a professor at the Schulich School of Business at Toronto's York University.
"Of course, that implies that they're going to be around that long."
Tom Hockin, a former cabinet minister in the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, who went on to a career teaching political science and managing business, has high praise for off-kilter appointments. (Former Politician who is now teaching POLITICAL SCIENCE....has a high praise for off-kilter appointments...hm!?!...sure thing)
"Generally I'm against making doctors minister of health and military people ministers of defence and stockbrokers ministers of finance," he said. (except for Gordon O'Conner, you're good Gordy...no off kilter here...)
"They're such a professional enthusiast about their portfolio that they are totally captured by the momentum of the department." ("Professional enthusiast" is Conservative lingo for "unqualified" and sometimes "unaccountable"...)
Both Hockin and Solberg said traditional appointments work best when the department's path is clear and well charted, which makes retired general Gordon O'Connor a good steward for rebuilding Canada's military, and former Ontario finance minister Jim Flaherty a natural for the federal job.
"There's an orthodoxy in finance," said Solberg. (but the path of Immigration is not clear....so wait...what are the unorthodox Conservative plans for Immigration that Solberg will implement because he has no accountability to minorities?)
Other ministries under the Tories may be far more open to re-interpretation.
Hockin notes that as minister of international trade, he once negotiated the side accords to NAFTA on labour and the environment. (Their defense of the Conservative cabinet is that they appointed a former Liberal??)
"I felt almost a bit fraudulent because, really, the environment is 80 per cent provincial (jurisdiction)," he said. "The federal government's role in environment is quite limited."
Ambrose, with her background in federal-provincial relations, may prove ideally suited to the job, said Hockin.
"She might be able to knit together the provincial-federal approach to it."
Ultimately, said the former minister, it's "a bit of a parlour game" projecting in advance whether new cabinet ministers will be successes or failures.
Wheeler, the academic, said he sees evidence of an overarching strategy in the Harper cabinet: experienced managers in a few key portfolios to get some early priorities dealt with, plus a group of younger talent who need time to build contacts, trust and understanding.
"It would tend to signal that their (government) priorities - at least in the early days - would be in the portfolios where there's a clearer fit between the ministers and the remit of the department," said Wheeler.
Not so fast, Segal responded with a laugh.
By the time political, ideological, gender and regional imperatives are factored in, such highfalutin management theory suggests "a level of sophistication you don't normally see in cabinet making." (what is his definition of sophistication? Appointing non-elected officials, having Immigration Minister who say they are a good pick because they don't have to be accountable to Immigrants (since they won't be voters in their riding), appointing a Defence lobbyist at Defence Minister, or suggesting that appointing former Liberal members is a 'sophisticated' move...)
(I don't know what is worst, the appointment of the cabinet or the way they defended it...)
