Of Cabinets Shuffled Or Not

There was very little about yesterdays Cabinet Shuffle in Ottawa that I would call surprising.

The full list of cabinet is here.

For a Prime Minister who whines and snivels about the opposition parties "playing politics", I'm disappointed that he put Baird into the environment portfolio. Although Baird is a more experienced politician than Ambrose, he doesn't have any more background in the politics of the field. (Which tells me that this is fundamentally a political move in the first place).

He's left a lot of really bad ministers in place (Bev Oda for one), to continue implementing destructive policies. In an extension of that, we find Jason Kenney has oozed his way into the "Secretary for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity". This one really worries me in much the same way that Oda does. Kenney is part of the old Reform/Alliance crowd that always used to claim that "the government shouldn't fund multiculturalism". I fully expect that the next round of "spending efficiencies" to come out of Harper's government will hit that area quite hard.

[Update]
In the asinine headline department, the Calgary Herald this morning had the headline "Harper goes green in cabinet shuffle" splashed across the front page.

Just to be absolutely clear, Harper DID NOT "go green". There isn't a single person in that cabinet with a serious background in the issues of the environment, and putting Baird into place as the minister responsible doesn't automagically make Baird even remotely close to be a domain expert.
[/Update]