Alberta's New Cabinet Announced

Ed Stelmach's cabinet has been unveiled.

What's interesting is that many "senior" members of Ralph's cabinet are gone. Not demoted - gone. People like Gary Mar have been sent back to the benches. I see this as a promising start - Stelmach is clearly trying to differentiate himself from Klein - which if nothing else takes a "staleness" out of the cabinet players.

I notice he's given Morton a relatively junior post in the cabinet. Again, a fairly wise move on his part. Stelmach was to some extent obliged to make Morton a minister as a goodwill gesture, but at the same time, he needed to reward more stalwart backers of his campaign ahead of an outright rival.

I'll be curious to see just how the wingnut-o-sphere in Alberta politics responds to this.

[Update 21:25]
I just had a rather interesting conversation with a close friend about the new cabinet, and they put a very cynical spin on it. Basically, they looked at who was appointed to what posts and came up with the conclusion that Stelmach has used this cabinet to "pay political debts". The objection, quite legitimately, is that we do not necessarily have the 'best person for the job' in any given post, rather the posts have been handed out based on the "size of the political debt" to be repaid.

For someone looking for a "reinvention" of the governing party, this is a recycle of the same old, same old politics that have come to pervade the PC party's governance since the 1970s. (Granted, anyone who looked at Don Getty's leadership had to admit that many of his ministerial postings were purely political in nature, and did not put the best people available into the roles)
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