The biggest changes and the most worrying signs regarding Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet come from the portfolios that Trudeau believes are the most dear to his heart.
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Melanie Joly is in Foreign Affairs, Steven Guilbeault is responsible for the environment and John Wilkinson is responsible for natural resources.
With these three appointments, Justin Trudeau says natural resource extraction in Canada is in danger, and he doesn’t really care what the world thinks about this country.
Let’s start with foreign affairs and the appointment of Joly.
It was a prestigious appointment in any government, regardless of political stripe. The person in this portfolio represented Canada on the world stage.
Often, with Trudeau, it’s a place where he parks ministers he doesn’t know what to do with, and Joly is the latest example.
Stéphane Dion, his Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs was a disaster that tried to repair relations with Iran and Russia before the Trudeau government decided it was a bad idea. Chrystia Freeland held the position quite admirably from 2017 to 2019.
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Trudeau then put in place two replacements – François-Philippe Champagne and Marc Garneau – before appointing Joly.
Joly failed in the heritage and tourism portfolios, but is now being rewarded with promotion as the face of Canada to the world.
Environmentally, it’s worse.
Trudeau, our chief virtue flagger, reports that he fully endorsed Greenpeace’s sweeping environmental policies. Steven Guilbeault is our new Minister of the Environment and former Minister of the Environment Jonathan Wilkinson is our Minister of Natural Resources.
This is not just a warning to the oil and gas industry; it is also a warning for the forestry and mining sectors. Anyone working in agriculture and fishing should also be concerned, as Trudeau has tasked two radicals to regulate some of our most important and important industries.
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Forget about building pipelines in the future, every sector that depends on natural resources is now in the spotlight.
Trudeau did what I hope were good shots.
Anita Anand is taking over the defense and hopefully will have the opportunity to make the necessary changes to deal with issues of sexual misconduct in the military.
Trudeau came to power shortly after the release of the Deschamp report, which detailed what was wrong and how to fix it. He and his former minister, Harjit Sajjan, ignored this report and let the problems escalate; hope Anand can fix it.
Marco Mendicino is replacing Bill Blair in public safety, and we have to hope he brings a more realistic view of a very serious problem: guns and gang violence. While Blair was entirely political, as he had been as the Toronto Police Chief, Mendicino is smart and worked as a Crown attorney before entering politics.
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He knows the gun problem can’t be solved by just preying on hunters and sport shooters, and more needs to be done to target the gangs who smuggle guns to the other side. from the border.
Thankfully, Trudeau has abandoned ministries like “middle class prosperity” and the “digital government” portfolio that haven’t accomplished much.
But we have separate federal ministers for sport and tourism, and a stand-alone minister for economic development in southern Ontario. He also appointed a 32-year-old woman, Kamal Khera, who represents Brampton, as Minister of Seniors. I doubt that many seniors care about this appointment.
Trudeau ditched Marc Garneau, Jim Carr and Bardish Chagger and incredibly kept Caroline Bennett and Harjit Sajjan in cabinet despite their poor performances.
This cabinet lineup leaves me shaking my head, but as Trudeau shifts the Liberals further to the left to outrun the NDP, I’m not exactly the target audience.
Either way, this is a government we all have to live with, and I’m not convinced Trudeau put Canada first with this cabinet.
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