Shuffling The Deck(Chairs)

With Bonus NDP Reaction

We finally have a Cabinet Shuffle! I wrote about the biggest singular addition last night, as I meditated on the very concepts of sanity and reason and worked through Nate’s decision to replace Sean Fraser as Housing Minister. But there’s a whole rest of the cabinet to shuffle, so we’ll move through the rest.

This will be scattershot and all over the place, because this will be a pseudo live blog, just posted after we have the full list. Not every move will get covered, but anything and everything that I find interesting enough to cover will. Let’s get shuffling, but before we do let’s have some fun with the non-shuffle news of the day, that Katie Telford, Dom LeBlanc, and Marc Miller are keeping the PM in the job, as reported in the Globe. (Update: I wrote this sentence before the NDP threatened to non-con the government. Whatever. I did an addendum on that at the bottom.)

The Wedding Party Can All Go Fuck Themselves

Telford is currently screening calls to the PM, patching through those that want him to stay and icing those that want him gone. She, in addition to LeBlanc and Miller, are the key people keeping Trudeau in the job. Per the Globe, those Monday reports he was considering resigning were accurate, but he was talked out of it by his wedding party. And I need to say, from the bottom of my heart, that that trio all need to go fuck themselves.

It’s exceedingly clear to everybody with a brain that all three of their careers in public life are done the second they don’t have their benefactor around anymore. Telford is too closely linked and has pissed too many people off to ever get another serious job, and Miller and LeBlanc are the exact kind of people that get fired/resign in a first Cabinet of a new leader to show all the ways they’re new and fresh. So all of them need Trudeau to cling on. But in doing so, they’re all betraying this country.

They’re doing more harm than good. Lying to the PM and pretending there is a path forward when there’s not is not just a betrayal of party and country, but a personal affront to him. Telford, Miller, and LeBlanc all clearly think so little of the PM that they think it’s acceptable to treat him like a dumbass child who can’t figure out that the fact he’s wet is because he’s standing in the rain. Fuck off, all of you. The country will be better off when you do.

David McGuinty To Public Safety

It’s never made much sense why David never got a job under Justin - sure, my one interaction with him in 2015 was icier than relations between this site and the PMO, but if being an ass precluded promotion half the cabinet would be gone. What is clear is that McGuinty is a steady hand, even if he’s not been in Cabinet all these years.

McGuinty has dealt with high level work as chair of NSICOP, he’s generally regarded as sound, and is unlikely to royally fuck up his department. It’s maybe not a win, but in the context of some of the other choices on offer, it’s not a disgrace. (I am moderately surprised McGuinty got this over Yasir Naqvi, who was rumoured to be a shoe-in for a Cabinet job in the past but is still on the outside. Yasir was an Ontario Attorney General, which would have been a useful fit.)

Underwhelming Additions?

Let’s just be honest here - plenty of the people left in caucus who could take these jobs are fucking stupid. The losses in 2019 and then the mostly stagnant 2021 result, combined with considerable front bench departures, has led to a cabinet that is lacking intellectual heft. Swapping in Nate for Sean is great, but in aggregate, a government that had Randy Fucking Boissonault in it is not one where there’s a surplus of geniuses waiting on the outside.

Charles Sousa has done a big job before as Finance Minister of Ontario even if I don’t remember him excelling in the job. McGuinty’s not an idiot. And there are some who have not made much of an impression, positive or negative, on me so far. But holy fucking hell is this really who’s being promoted in?

No Ben Carr, no Anna Gainey, no Naqvi, just a handful of mostly anonymous MPs who haven’t shown themselves to be much of anything so far. It’s honestly extremely underwhelming, mostly because there’s not much talent left in the party that hasn’t either told JT to go fuck himself or been fired by the PM.

Anand Sticking At Transport?

I don’t really get what this government has against Anita Anand but sure, moving your smartest remaining Minister into what is generally seen as a mid-tier Ministry is great. She was the Treasury Board Minister who was whip smart and instead of keeping continuity of government in a finance portfolio during a trade war we handed Treasury Board to Ginette Petitpas Taylor, who the less I say anything about the better.

Maybe Anand prefers Transport, I don’t know, but otherwise this is another sign of the weird disrespect Trudeau has for her.

Why The Fuck Is Melanie Joly Still In Her Job?

One of the reasons Anand was put at Treasury Board at the last shuffle, other than her allegedly wanting out of Defence because it’s a quagmire, was because the PM wanted to clip her wings. He has apparently had a problem with her being ambitious about the leadership. If that’s true, and it’s been reported enough places and told to me privately enough places, then HOW THE FUCKING FUCK IS MELANIE “It’s Colonial To Appoint Ambassadors” JOLY STILL AT FOREIGN AFFAIRS?

She is not good at her job, she’s not respected, and she’s very obviously on maneuvers. Why the fuck does she get all the slack that Trudeau won’t give to Anand?

Election Thoughts

Honestly the rest of this shuffle kind of sucks - it’s boring deck chair shuffling and I still JT resigns so who really cares that Steve MacKinnon is double bunking Labour and Employment or whatever. It is what it is. The most notable part of the morning is Jagmeet Singh promising to bring down this government at the next sitting of the House.

Now, Parliament’s not scheduled to be back until January 27th and with the government controlling the calendar it’s likely if Trudeau clings on to the job that this would mean a very early February vote of non-confidence and a early March election. If Doug Ford does what we should all expect and goes to an election in February with a January campaign start, then maybe the NDP punt the writ drop till after Ontario. But again, that’s if Trudeau stays.

However it’s pretty unlikely Trudeau stays at this point. The only people left who want him to are his wedding party, so he will see reason and resign, especially with the certainty of a March election date coming down the barrel. What seems more likely to me is a resignation, a quick and dirty contest to replace Trudeau that goes from January to early March, with the House prorogued from January 27th through the end of March Break (a week the Commons always takes off anyways). That’d give the new Leader a couple weeks to pick and swear in a new Cabinet and get those people briefed and at least somewhat ready.

At that point the Budget would be the confidence test, and if the new leader polls better and the budget is sufficiently robust with giveaways maybe they get the Bloc and/or NDP to blink. I think a lot of the Bloc’s bluster is that they’re projecting for a shade under 50 seats. If the Liberals are back at 30% in Quebec under new management then their gung ho attitude might suddenly be a thing of the past.

But all in all the case for Trudeau staying now is gone. The case was he would handle the tariffs well and the that could save the polls. Well, now he’s not going to be able to say that because the tariff crisis will certainly be an ongoing process at an election. Trudeau’s out of moves. He needs to resign, and let the party move on quickly without him. The NDP finally did something useful.