{"id":1703,"date":"2008-03-12T20:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1703"},"modified":"2008-03-12T20:03:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-13T00:03:00","slug":"cabinet-shuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1703","title":{"rendered":"Cabinet Shuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"

In most places, the first cabinet after an election is called a “new” Cabinet. In Alberta? It’s called a cabinet shuffle<\/a>. And, even as far as cabinet shuffles go, this one<\/a> was minor with only two ministers changing portfolios. A few thoughts on the new PC cabinet:<\/p>\n

1. By most standards, representing the two cities that make up two thirds of Alberta’s population with under 40% of the cabinet spots, would be a slight. After only placing three Calgarians<\/span> and one Edmontonian<\/span> in his first Cabinet, this is likely enough to get Ed rave reviews.<\/p>\n

2. Likewise, the seven women in this Cabinet is a massive jump from the two who made his first Cabinet. Of note, Iris Evans gets Finance.<\/p>\n

3. The Cabinet has ballooned to 24, after Stelmach<\/span> promised to cut its size during the leadership race. In addition, there are 10 parliamentary assistants (think Parliamentary Secretaries) and 5 cabinet committee chairs. So, in other words, if you’re a Tory MLA<\/span> who didn’t<\/em> get something today, you’re in the minority.<\/p>\n

4. Guy Boutlier<\/span> is the only person dumped<\/a> from Cabinet. Ouch.<\/p>\n

5. Stelmach’s<\/span> most effective Minister, Dave Hancock, gets shuffled out of health, and into Education.<\/p>\n

6. The “giant-killer killer”, Alison Redford, winds up in Justice. Not bad for a rookie and it sure beats being a backbench MP in Ottawa, which she would have been had she beaten Rob Anders for the Calgary West nomination when she ran against him.<\/p>\n

So, from the optics perspective, the only real knock Stelmach<\/span> will get is from increasing the size of the Cabinet. Might be a good place to start the attacks if the ALP want to portray themselves as the fiscally conservative alternative in Alberta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In most places, the first cabinet after an election is called a “new” Cabinet. In Alberta? It’s called a cabinet shuffle. And, even as far as cabinet shuffles go, this one was minor with only two ministers changing portfolios. A few thoughts on the new PC cabinet: 1. By most standards, representing the two cities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alberta-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}