Continuing my efforts to teach us all a little more about our neighbors to the North …
All the names of cabinet ministers have been announced, and there were a few clear trends in Prime Minister Martin’s appointments. Two of the most interesting involved regional representation and intra-party unity. First, the prime minister is desperate to expand support for his Liberal party in Western Canada. Though his party has a mere 15 members of parliament from that area of the country, he has named 8 of them to the cabinet. These eight include the top two members below Martin, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. As the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson put it, “If you are a Liberal MP from West of Ontario and you aren’t in cabinet, you should check your pulse”. Secondly, Martin kept and promoted ministers who were personally loyal to him, and he demoted or excluded major figures who had crossed him and/or were seen as affiliated with the camp of former long-time Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien. This point is interesting in light of the fact that Martin is leading a minority government, and one of the factors frequently mentioned as having depleted the Liberal’s vote was intra-party feuding. In creating his cabinet he seems to have done little to overcome this problem.
Posted by armand at July 21, 2004 09:17 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics