Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff Joins Most Bloated Cabinet in Ontario History

Apparently Doug Ford’s Call To Niagara and other Municipalities Across Province to Reduce Size of Their Governments Doesn’t Apply to Him and His Cabinet

A News Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper

Posted June 10th, 2024 on Niagara At Large

This past June 6th, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a list of shuffled his cabinet with a number of old hands and with some new members that include Niagara West Conservative MPP Sam Oosterhoff.

Oosterhoff, who is serving his second term as (at age 27) one of the youngest, if not the youngest person in the Ontario legislature, is joining Ford’s cabinet as “Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries as part of the Ministry of Energy and Electrification” – whatever in hell an associate director of electrification t means.

Perhaps Ford and Oosterhoff don’t know this but unless you are a hard-core libertarian who chooses to live in a makeshift shack out in the woods, electrification has been the status quo for virtually every home and business owner in this province for more than a hundred years.

On a more serious note, I will tell you what electrifies me.

Ford and Oosterhoff and company came into power in Ontario in 2018 railing against the size of government, particularly at the municipal level.

One of the Ford government’s first acts was to take a meat axe to Toronto’s city council – cutting the number of councillors challenged with managing the affairs of one of North America’s largest cities in half.

And all we have been hearing about since from the Ford government and its supporters are complaints about the number of elected representatives sitting on municipal councils in Niagara and on councils in other regions of the province, even though most of our councillors are part-time with salaries and benefits that make up a very small fraction of the total municipal budget.

Yet when Ford’s Conservatives came to power in 2018, it inherited a cabinet comprised of less than 20 members from the province’s former Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne.

By last year, Ford had swelled the number of cabinet positions to 31 members with many of them being rewarded (using i 2023 figures) with salaries, not including the cost of benefits and staff of $165,000 – more than 40 per cent above the 116,500 salary of run-of-the-mill MPPs.

It’s a nice way for Ford to buy even more loyalty from a larger number of members in his caucus.

“Ford should have used (last year’s cabinet shuffle as an opportunity to streamline government and bring the size of his bloated cabinet back down to earth,”said the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Ontario director Jam Goldberg in a news release at the time. “Instead, he’s made his cabinet even bigger and is sticking hardworking Ontarians with the bill.”

In a separate news release last year, Niagara Centre NDP MPP Jeff Burch said Ford should be spending more money on services that matter, like health care and our public schools, instead of turning the Ontario cabinet into even more of a “gravy train.”

Instead, this past June 6th, Ford announced a new cabinet consisting of 36 members – more than double the number of members in the last cabinet of Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“Brutal,” responded Ontario NDP Official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles. .

“After another disastrous year of failures and scandal for Doug Ford, people are worse off,” charged Stiles. Now “Ford is taking a 19-week extended vacation and giving more of his MPPs a raise in the biggest cabinet in provincial history while people struggle to find a home, get a doctor and make ends meet.”

Brutal, indeed. And so much for all of the continued bullshit from Ford’s party and its supporters about the size of government at the municipal level.

The blatant hypocrisy from this government and its supporters on this file runs thicker than ketchup from a bottle.

This bunch has no business pushing for less government at the municipal level.

Leave that to the voters at election time.

In the meantime, where is all of the yelling from those out there who complain about the size of government. So far all I have heard is crickets.

• Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

For your information, here is the Ford government 2024 list of new cabinet members –

• Premier Doug Ford remains Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
• Sylvia Jones remains Deputy Premier and Minister of Health
• Peter Bethlenfalvy remains Minister of Finance
• Paul Calandra remains Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
• Raymond Cho remains Minister of Seniors and Accessibility
• Stan Cho becomes Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming, with responsibility for OLG
• Doug Downey remains Attorney General
• Jill Dunlop remains Minister of Colleges and Universities
• Vic Fedeli remains Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade
• Rob Flack becomes Minister of Farming, Agriculture and Agribusiness
• Michael Ford remains Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism
• Mike Harris (son of former Tory premier Mike Harris) becomes Minister of Red Tape Reduction
• Michael Kerzner remains Solicitor General
• Andrea Khanjin remains Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks
• Natalia Kusendova-Bashta becomes Minister of Long-Term Care
• Stephen Lecce becomes Minister of Energy and Electrification
• Neil Lumsden becomes Minister of Sport
• Todd McCarthy becomes Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, with responsibility for Supply Ontario
• Caroline Mulroney remains President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Francophone Affairs
• Michael Parsa remains Minister of Children, Community and Social Services
• David Piccini remains Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development
• George Pirie remains Minister of Mines
• Greg Rickford becomes Minister of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation and remains Minister of Northern Development
• Prabmeet Sarkaria remains Minister of Transportation
• Todd Smith becomes Minister of Education
• Graydon Smith becomes Minister of Natural Resources
• Kinga Surma remains Minister of Infrastructure
• Lisa Thompson becomes Minister of Rural Affairs
• Stephen Crawford becomes Associate Minister of Mines as part of the Ministry of Mines
• Trevor Jones becomes Associate Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Response as part of Treasury Board Secretariat
• Sam Oosterhoff becomes Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries as part of the Ministry of Energy and Electrification
• Nolan Quinn becomes Associate Minister of Forestry as part of the Ministry of Natural Resources
• Nina Tangri remains Associate Minister of Small Business as part of the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade
• Vijay Thanigasalam becomes Associate Minister of Housing as part of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
• Michael Tibollo remains Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions as part of the Ministry of Health
• Charmaine Williams remains Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity as part of the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services
• In addition, outside of Cabinet, Steve Clark has been appointed Government House Leader.

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