Wynne’s New Ontario Cabinet Is A Mix Of New And Familiar Faces

–         The Question Is: How Much Time Will It Buy Her Minority Liberal Government?

A Commentary by Doug Draper

It is being billed by some in Queen’s Park circles as a “new face” cabinet.

Yet that billing remains in the eyes of the beholder and depends on the issues that matter to you the most.

Deb Matthews remains Ontario’s health minister in Kathleen Wynne cabinet.

If you are a teacher, or a student or parent of a student upset with the recent unrest and curtailment of extra-curricular activities in Ontario’s public schools, you might be elated to know that the province’s new premier, Kathleen Wynne, has replaced Dalton McGuinty era education minister Laurel Broten with London area backbencher and former school board trustee Liz Sandals.

If, on the other hand, you are a resident living in one of Niagara, Ontario’s southern or central communities, including two of the region’s largest municipalities, Niagara Falls and Welland, you might be upset to find out that Wynne is keeping Deb Matthews on as the province’s health minister.

Matthews, after all, has pretty well functioned as a knee-jerk supporter of the old Niagara Health System board’s so-called “hospital improvement plan” for consolidating acute care health services in a new hospital in the north-end municipality of St. Catharines, More recently, she has annoyed many residents and municipal politicians in Niagara’s south end with a warning that they may not get the province’s approval for a new hospital if they can’t agree on a site. At the same time, she has made it known that any consideration of a new hospital for south Niagara is not even in the province’s latest five-year plan.

Word also leaked out hours before Wynne is to be sworn in this February 11 as Ontario’s first female premier and is to introduce her new cabinet, that Jim Bradley, the veteran Liberal MPP for St. Catharines and now the longest serving member of the provincial legislature, will keep his role as the environment minister.

This is an interesting decision in the sense that Wynne, unlike McGuinty, is believed to be a far stronger proponent for environmental protection and for striking a more even balance between protecting and preserving natural resources and the exploitation of those same resources.

St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley continues as province’s environment minister

Bradley was, by many accounts, including those of David Suzuki and other environmentalists across the country, the best environment minister any province in Canada had when he held that position from 1985 to 1990 for the former Liberal government of David Peterson. But what helped there was that Peterson, who seemed to truly care about environmental issues, unleashed Bradley to introduce what were then, some of the continent’s most progressive environmental programs. McGuinty appointed him back to the environmental portfolio a year and a half ago, but by many accounts, gave him no room to do much of anything new or daring on the environmental protection front.

Now we will find out if there is any of the old Jim Bradley – that environment minister from the 1980s who received Pollution Probe awards and one from the United Nations for what was then Ontario’s leading edge recycling programs – under a Wynne government that, unlike McGuinty, promises to give environmental protection more than just lip-service.

Wynne is also replacing an embattled McGuinty energy minister, Chris  Bentley who is doing us all a favour by quitting politics, with former infrastructure minister Bob Chiarelli, who will no doubt continue to face questions over the McGuinty government’s decision to waste at least $200 million of our tax money axing plans to build controversial gas-powered electricity plants in Oakville and Mississauga in Liberal held ridings before the last 2011 provincial election.

Ontario’s NDP leader Andrea Horwath, who also has a bundle of good ideas for the people of Ontario, has been pushing for a full public inquiry over this, but why? What would we gain?

Anyone who has bothered to pay attention to Ontario politics over the past couple of years already knows that the decision to cancel these ‘not-in-my-backyard’ projects had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with the province’s energy needs. So why waste tens-of-millions of more dollars for lawyers to picnic on a public inquiry that quite likely won’t tell us more than we already know? The slim possibility that such an exercise might mean a little more embarrassment for Liberal government that has already seen the end of McGuinty and the casting out of Bentley is not worth putting feed bags on lawyers, who are almost always guaranteed to get the most out of one of these shows.

How much better for our collective future that we give the new energy minister a chance to work on developing programs for Ontario’s energy future, including focusing more on energy conservation which Wynne recently said is important to her.

A full list of new cabinet ministers will be available online later this February 11 and it is ultimately up to we, the people, to decide whether it will work on not.

Last time I checked, we still live in a democracy in this province. It is our future and it is up to us to get engaged and decide who will form a government that best serves us all.

Here is a full list of the new Kathleen Wynne cabinet.

• Premier Wynne herself as Agriculture Minister
• Charles Sousa as Finance Minister
• Ottawa’s Bob Chiraelli takes on Energy
• Brad Duguid leaves energy to become Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities
• Laurel Broten from education to Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
• Hamilton’s Ted McMeekin moves from agriculture to Community and Social Services
• Linda Jeffrey takes on Municipal Affairs and Housing and is Chair of cabinet
• Eric Hoskins moves to Economic Development, Trade and Employment
• Glen Murray becomes Minister of Infrastructure and Minister of Transportation
• Michael Gravel moves to Northern Development and Mines.

Ministers staying in their same positions include:

• Health Minister Deb Matthews, who also becomes Deputy Premier.
• Environment Minister Jim Bradley
• Attorney General John Gerretsen
• Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur, also responsible for Francophone Affairs
• Government services Minister Harinder Takhar
• Government House Leader John Milloy
• Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Michael Chan.

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