15 janvier 2019 – Telegraph Journal

Cabinet shuffle criticized by public policy expert

ADAM HURAS PARLIAMENT HILL

Justin Trudeau

OTTAWA • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s created a new cabinet post and staffed it with an Atlantic Canadian MP to focus on the challenges facing rural parts of the country in what will be in the leadup to the looming federal election.

But a public policy expert says the move is too little too late.

A Conservative critic also says that Monday’s cabinet shuffle only weakens Atlantic Canada’s voice in Ottawa.

Nova Scotia MP Bernadette Jordan has been elevated from the Liberal backbenches and into a brand new portfolio to become the country’s minister of Rural Economic Development in a shuffle involving five Liberal MPs.

The move to promote Jordan comes after another one of the Atlantic region’s MPs, veteran politician Scott Brison, announced he was stepping down from his position in the Trudeau inner circle as Treasury Board president.

The shuff le involved five Liberals MPs in total, although none of the 10 from New Brunswick.

Trudeau said on Monday that the new cabinet post “will play a major role in the lives of rural Canadians and their families.” 15 janvier 2019 – Telegraph Journal

Jordan will oversee the creation of a rural development strategy.

“When our team travels across the countr y visiting communities big and small we hear all the time that the challenges facing rural and urban Canadians are very, very different,” Trudeau said. “Access to reliable high speed internet, driving distance to the closest childcare centre, pulling together funding for infrastructure projects – these things might not be top of mind if you live in a city of a million people, but they can be a daily struggle in a town of five hundred.”

Asked whether the move is in aims to shore up support in Atlantic Canada ahead of the federal election, Trudeau said Jordan is an “extraordinary leader who has been able to step up time and time again in defence of her community, in defence of the interests of Atlantic Canadians.”

Donald Savoie, the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at Université de Moncton, was critical of the move.

“Whatever proposal (Rural Economic Development) comes up with, that should have been done in the first year of the mandate, not nine months to go to an election,” Savoie said. “By the time you get the players involved, the resources lined up, knowing how slow the federal government works, how bureaucracy can be painfully slow, I don’t expect much.”

Savoie also said that Atlantic Canada “lost a big, big player” in Brison.

“He has the experience, the knowledge, the skills. When we lost him, we lost a very heavy hitter,” he said.

Conservative critic for Atlantic Canada Rob Moore said in an interview the shuffle sees another major portfolio move into the hands of politicians outside of the region, citing that a last shuff le saw the Fisheries file moved to an MP on the west coast.

The changes also didn’t move the file of minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency back into the region. Navdeep Bains, a minister from Ontario, oversees that file.

“In my view, this shuff le is an admission of a huge mistake,” Moore said. “Rural Economic Development is what an ACOA minister from Atlantic Canada who has 15 janvier 2019 – Telegraph Journal some resources at their disposal should have been working on for the last three years.”

Brison’s departure meant cabinet was without representation from Nova Scotia.

The federal Liberals won all 11 seats in the province in the 2015 federal election and all 32 in Atlantic Canada.

Meanwhile, Trudeau maintains several New Brunswick MPs in high-ranking positions.

Two New Brunswick MPs remain in cabinet: Beauséjour MP Dominic Le-Blanc is currently the federal Intergovernmental Affairs minister and Moncton-Riverview- Dieppe MP Ginette Petitpas Taylor is the country’s Health minister.

Fredericton MP Matt DeCourcey is also currently the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Alaina Lockhart is the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie and Serge Cormier is parliamentary secretary to the minister of National Defence.