On Thursday, Premier Doug Ford shuffled his cabinet as the legislature rose for a long summer break. Politicians are never really off the clock, but Ontario’s MPPs will now be away from Queen’s Park until October 21, which must mean they’ll be attending plenty of backslapping backyard barbecues.
At the same time, nearly half of Ford’s caucus will now find themselves doing double duty as ministers, too, as the cabinet swells to 36 members; there’s a minister for red-tape reduction, but apparently no one in charge of irony. Indeed, the massive front bench leaves observers to wonder what it’d take not to get a gravy-train ticket under this government.
The change-up sees 16 ministers shuffled or added to cabinet, with the pay boost that comes with it. The most notable change was Stephen Lecce moving from education to energy in a swap with Todd Smith. Steve Clark, who left the housing ministry in disgrace amid the ongoing Greenbelt scandal, is back as house leader. Core ministers Sylvia Jones, Paul Calandra, Peter Bethlenfalvy, Vic Fedeli, Doug Downey, and Jill Dunlop are staying in their current gigs.
It's hard to decipher just what Ford’s cabinet shuffle will accomplish. You might call it a pre-writ team, as talk grows of an early election. That’s been the consensus take so far. As Colin D’Mello of Global News writes, the government is shifting to “a new election focused cabinet with energy and the federal carbon tax as the tip of the spear.”
So this is the team that will take the province into its next, early, election. The insider intel says the Tories are worried about what a federal Conservative win might do to their prospects, and they’re no doubt keen to stay ahead of the Liberals as they rebuild. Ford’s side nonetheless remains up in the polls and way ahead in fundraising.
To me, the cabinet shuffle reads as a few things. Above all, it’s a distraction from the many failures and scandals the government is facing, including the Beer Store Bonanza Giveaway, the ongoing Greenbelt fiasco, a failure to build homes during a housing crisis, and so on down the line.
Next, it’s a gravy-train giveaway. With 36 Tory MPPs now making a handsome bonus of over 40 per cent more as cabinet ministers, Ford’s caucus will be kept docile, controlled, and ready to stump for their boss. In essence, the taxpayer is funding a central-office babysitting program that doubles as an election-readiness scheme. Nice work, if you can get it.
Finally, the shuffle does indeed read like the energy/carbon-tax frame job that D’Mello suggests. Lecce is a high-profile minister who may be in line to replace Ford at some point. He’s slick, and he’s smart. As much as he’s been reckless as education minister — and no doubt was due for a swap, as he’s alienated every educator in the province — he’s an effective communicator who knows the province’s pressure points. He’s been as politically effective as his policies have been destructive. He’ll no doubt bring that same energy to, well, the energy file, and Ford will get an election-ready contrast machine as he prepares to run against the federal Liberals and NDP as much as their provincial counterparts.
Ford’s shuffle is ultimately cynical and disappointing, but what else could it be? No shuffle will redeem this government. No shuffle could. The changes are wasteful and distracting and unlikely to have any substantive policy effect, but they could pay political dividends for the Tories in a province that seems utterly complacent when it comes to prolonged abuse from their government. In that sense, the changes are also an exercise in impunity. Ford remains in control and free to do what he wishes, left with a wide berth from a plurality of the voting population that’s not ready to consider holding him to account.
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