Cabinet shuffle for a government in crisis

Or, how does it help?

Dear Readers,

I won’t pronounce on the central issue that still faces the government, which is the question of the future of Justin Trudeau as PM. Plenty of channels speculating on that; not much news (I should say, perhaps, as I write…).

I am going to zero in on the question of whether the Cabinet shuffle strengthens Canada’s hand in the biggest political battle it has to face in the near future—no, not a confidence vote--but the coming to power of Donald Trump on January 20, 2025.

The first thing to note is that the Cabinet shuffle leaves many key players in their current roles:

Bill Blair as Minister of Defence

Melanie Joly as Minister of Foreign Affairs

Francois Champagne as Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development

Mary Ng as Minister of International Trade

And of course, Dominic LeBlanc as newly minted Minister of Finance.

As a team, this is a mixed bag, with LeBlanc and Blair as the heavy hitters and the others with challenges on their hands as effective counter-weights and interlocutors with their American counterparts. This is especially true for Melanie Joly.

Also worth noting. With Chrystia Freeland ‘s fiery departure we no longer have a deputy PM, or a quarterback for Canada-US relations.

Anita Anand has been furthered displaced to the outer edges of Cabinet with loss of the Treasury Board appointment. Another female Minister that Justin seems to have difficulty working with, despite her obvious qualities, especially when she served as Minister of Defence.

So are there any gains in the Cabinet shuffle to strengthen the Trudeau team on Canada-US relations? Just one, I think.

Veteran MP David McGuinty, who has served in Parliament for 20 years, has been elevated to Cabinet for the first time as Minister of Public Safety. McGuinty has long experience in federal politics, has served in various opposition critic roles, and once even considered a leadership bid for the party himself. He is beyond the point of competing for that job, so presents no threat to Justin or his successor; he also represents a safe Ottawa seat, so can save his Cabinet energies for his Ministerial role.

He brings some unusual strengths to the Public Safety portfolio, especially the fact that he has served for the past seven years as the Chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. He knows where the skeletons are in the closet of national security, and where the strengths are, including reputational strengths with allies. While serving as Chair, NSICOP did major reviews of CBSA and the RCMP, among other federal departments and agencies. The NSICOP review of RCMP federal policing ended up urging the Minister of Public Safety to get cracking on reform of the RCMP and to dig deep in thinking about its future, especially around contract policing. Now he can take his own advice to heart (at least in the time available to him as Minister, which may be short). The NSICOIP under his leadership conducted two in-depth reviews of foreign interference in Canada and delivered hard-hitting recommendations. That will go down well with the Americans. He has had significant face-time with all the current leaders of the Canadian national security and intelligence system.

All of this will serve him well as a point-person in discussions with the Americans on border security, cross-border crime, migration, and intelligence and law enforcement cooperation. His Public Safety portfolio includes the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency, and CSIS. He will spend a lot of time in shuttle diplomacy in Washington; he will be able to get to grips with the Public Safety job—a big one—without a steep learning curve. And he will be assisted now by an associate Minister for Public Safety, for the first time since the Department was created twenty years ago. I read this as a way to free up some of Minister McGuinty’s time and attention to focus on the cross-border, existential drama. (Caveat—an astute reader has pointed out to me that the Public Safety portfolio has been divided up in the past. Bill Blair served alongside Ralph Goodale as “Minister of Border Security and Crime Reduction” from July 2018 to November 2019, so in effect an Associate Minister of Public Safety, just not in name and with specified duties).

Minister McGuinty will also be well placed to play a major role in the Cabinet’s National Security Council, which should be doing a lot of strategic thinking about the future of the Canada-US security relationship.

In normal times, it would have been unlikely that David McGuinty would have become a Cabinet Minister with a senior portfolio, despite his qualifications. His association through NSICOP with critical reviews of government national security policy would certainly not have endeared him to the PMO and probably not to the PM, though I know nothing of their personal relationship. But the times are not normal.

My judgement. David McGuinty’s Cabinet appointment is the one bright sign around strengthening the Liberal government’s ability to take on Trump and his acolytes on key files. It will need all the help it can get. It may also be fair to say that his appointment is the only sign that Justin Trudeau recognised the need to strengthen his corner for the matches to come.

Best wishes to all for the holiday season. Harder, alas, to say happy new year with a sober face.