Tag: tony clement

Final cabinet speculation

Mostly certain:
– Prime Minister Stephen Harper
– Flaherty to stay in Finance (confirmed by numerous people in the department)
– Baird moving (confirmed)
– Clement moving
– Guergis moving (family has flown in, and hair appointment booked early AM tomorrow apparently)
– Bernier not in cabinet
– Aglukkaq in cabinet
– Prentice staying in Industry (no indication of a move from bureaucrats or political staffers up until midnight)
– Lunn moving (family has flown in)
– Verner moving
– MacKay stays in defence
– a good number of Secretaries of State named

Responsibly speculative:
– Cannon in foreign affairs (heard this from a high level source on Tuesday night)
– Kenney at CIC
– Nicholson stays in Justice
– Strahl stays at INAC
– Clement in trade
– Baird in transport
– Verner to intergovernmental affairs
– Ambrose to HRSDC
– Shea or Duncan in Fisheries
– Raitt in cabinet
– James Moore promoted

Wildly and so irresponsibly speculative:
– Raitt to get NRCan (doubtful)
– Liberal crosses the floor and enters cabinet (sourced at a high level, but I don’t see it happening. Yet, a number of Liberals staffers have been confirming they’ve heard the same rumour for days)
– Rob Moore in cabinet

Cabinet facts and speculation

See my final cabinet speculation here

Tomorrow, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will name his new cabinet at Rideau Hall at 10:30am. There is a lot of speculation flowing out there and from this, I’ve been able to discern a few facts.

First, the easy facts: cabinet will be larger and have more women. Stephen Harper was returned to 24 Sussex on October 14th with an increased minority. Among the new seats gained by the Tories include a number of well-qualified women.

Second, Jim Flaherty stays in finance. In a time of global economic uncertainty, and after an election fought on stability in these times, changing the minister of finance could be seen as a bad signal to the world.

A few speculated that Helena Guergis may be retiring to the backbench. However, Guergis has told her junior ministerial staff that they’ll be employed in her office for at least the short-term future. I’ve also heard that Guergis is moving portfolios. Josee Verner is also moving portfolios.

Environment minister John Baird will also be moving portfolios now that green leader of the opposition Stephane Dion is stepping down. Baird was the go-to guy for acting as a shield for the government on tricky portfolios. He’ll move on to new responsibilities in cabinet.

As of Friday night, when most cabinet hopefuls had received their calls from the PM invited them to serve in the new cabinet, Maxime Bernier was left waiting. A few speculated that he’d return to cabinet, however, it seems that he’ll have some more time in the penalty box.

The newly minted Member of Parliament from Nunavut Leona Aglukkaq will serve in the next cabinet. Stephen Harper personally recruited the former territorial minister and has made northern sovereignty a defining issue of his Prime Ministership. Aglukkaq would be the first female Inuit to serve in federal cabinet. It is expected that she’ll become responsible for the new opportunities agency for the north.

Speculative news that I’m hearing is that Trade will be shifted from Foreign Affairs to Industry and that the Minister of Industry would also assume duties for this portfolio. Or, alternatively, trade will be under Industry bur will have a separate minister. The last election saw the defeat of Harper’s trade minister and a failure to re-offer by his foreign affairs minister.

On foreign affairs, I’m hearing that Lawrence Cannon will herd the cats at DFAIT. A french-speaking and centrist Conservative, Cannon may be Harper’s choice to head that portfolio.

In departmental news, I’m hearing that Transport and Infrastructure will be broken into two. Rookie MP Lisa Raitt may be a perfect fit for a reduced transport portfolio, while a Toronto area minister such as Peter Kent may fit the bill to shower the region with infrastructure development money. UPDATE: A bureaucrat that has seen the briefing books for Transport’s next minister says that infrastructure is still part of Transport’s mandate.

Will there be another Liberal defection to cabinet? I’m hearing yes and that it’ll be from Quebec (I’d categorize this as speculative even though my high level source seemed to be certain). After the last election Vancouver MP David Emerson jumped from the Liberal ranks to sit as a Conservative cabinet minister. With a Liberal party in ruin, we may just see one or more defections tomorrow.

UPDATE: Tony Clement is now confirmed as moving from the Ministry of Health.

UPDATE: Jim Prentice is expected to stay at Industry.

UPDATE: I’m hearing that Verner is going to intergovernmental affairs.

UPDATE: Late breaking speculative gossip: Ambrose to HRSDC?

UPDATE: Hill from Whip to House Leader?

Canadian Networking Conference and Exhibition

Blogging has been light recently as the Manning Centre for Building Democracy (where I am a Fellow) held its annual Canadian Networking Conference and Exhibition in Ottawa this weekend. Here’s how the Hill Times reported on it this morning,

“Meanwhile, a whole slew of Conservative heavy-hitters attended the Manning Centre Conference, including former Alberta premier Ralph Klein and former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord who spoke about his early days as political leader. Health Minister Tony Clement also delivered a speech on his election experiences, while former Ontario premier Mike Harris participated on a panel discussing the Conservative movement and health care. Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor made a presentation on social networking and Richard Ciano, who runs the Conservative Campaign University, spoke about campaign technologies and techniques. Former Nova Scotia premier John Hamm introduced former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, who gave the closing address.”

The conference kicked off with a reception held on Thursday evening which was attended by the Prime Minister, Preston Manning and a handful of cabinet ministers including Jim Flaherty and Monte Solberg. Preparing for the conference all day, I had not been able to evaluate the gravity of the Cadman-related allegations (I had only been peripherally aware of some Cadman-related story in the news) and greeting the Prime Minister, I cheerfully told him of my optimism related to recent events. In retrospect, I’m thankful that after this potentially disastrous declaration I referenced Dion’s deflation over the budget and the Liberal leader’s general troubles. That night, after getting home very late, I got caught up on the news and knew that it would be unsettling for my Conservative friends in Ottawa for some time.

The conference however soldiered on and the mood was generally upbeat. I got to catch up with a number of Blogging Tories and met a few of them in person for the first time. Dr. Roy, Steve from OfficiallyScrewed.com, Luca Manfredi and Sara Landriault were there among others. Even former BT “alumnus” Monte Solberg hung out for most of Saturday’s speeches. A quick poll that I took during my Saturday talk indicated that Blogging Tories was known to almost all of the attendees of the conference but many were surprised as to the depth and utility of the website; I took the opportunity to launch new features of the website from the stage including aggregated columnists, the aggregated conservative movement and the new version of Blogging Tories television. I’m also planning on launching a new feature on the website today so watch for it.

For all of those that came to the conference, thank you! For those that were unable to attend, we’ll be aiming for an even larger gathering of the conservative movement next year.