Image Credit: The Canadian Press

By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: Trudeau’s new cabinet is bloated and confusing

Nov 22, 2019 | 12:19 PM

JUSTIN TRUDEAU’S NEW CABINET, named this week, is a head-scratcher.

Forming a cabinet in Canada is becoming less and less about matching the most talented people with jobs in which they can excel to the benefit of the nation as a whole.

Instead, it has become a lot like the Canadian Senate in that appointments to cabinet are regionally based rewards.

Why else would we need three dozen cabinet ministers beneath the prime minister, each of them drawing extra salary and employing extra staff?

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Some of the portfolios are so nebulous, it’s unlikely the ministers themselves even know what they mean.

There is a minister of digital government — but surprisingly, no minister of analog government.

There is a minister for economic development and another one for rural economic development.

And there is a minister of middle-class prosperity — something you’d think would be covered by the myriad other portfolios that deal with the economy.

Regionally, Trudeau has two MPs from the North, but named a Winnipeg MP the minister of Northern Affairs.

There are a total of 16 Liberal MPs west of Ontario, and Trudeau had no one to choose from in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

He tapped another Winnipeg MP, Jim Carr, to work on repairing the relationship with the West.

It seems like giving extra responsibilities to an MP battling cancer is kind of unfair.

And while there is the gesture of trying to fix things with Alberta and Saskatchewan – Trudeau is clearly trying to win back Quebec with the 11 joining him in cabinet from La Belle Province.

He sees it as his path back to a majority, when simply retaining some electability in the Prairies could do that just as well.

If you worried that this government had abandoned Western Canada before, the cabinet won’t exactly assuage that fear.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.