Cabinet documents and deliberations #nlpoli

One of the big changes Bill 29 made to the province’s access to information law was to give a list of documents that could not be released under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act because they were cabinet documents.

Before then, the law in Newfoundland and Labrador, like the similar laws in the rest of the country merely said that people couldn’t get anything that would make public what the cabinet ministers talked about, in private, among themselves.  A British Columbia government policy manual explains why:

Premature disclosure of Cabinet deliberations inhibits the ability of Cabinet members to debate issues openly and freely, thereby reducing the effectiveness of Cabinet’s decision making role.

One of the reasons no one bothered to define a cabinet document and bar that from disclosure is that no one could really say what a cabinet document is.  People who’ve never dealt with cabinet or who have never had occasion to think about these things wouldn’t understand that how cabinet operates can vary widely from first minister to first minister.  The changes made in Bill 29 reflect how cabinet operates these days but Paul Davis or any of the ministers who come along later may run cabinet in such a way that most of those mandatory exemptions of certain pieces of paper won’t matter a bit.

There’s no firm rule as to who may sit in the room with cabinet.  Some administrations have allowed only  the clerk of the council and a deputy clerk into the room to provide administrative support.  Other people may come into the room and make a presentation but they get shuffled out of the room before cabinet discusses anything. In other administrations, they’ve had all sorts of hangers-on sitting in the room.  Most often, the extra bodies are senior political people from the first minister’s office.

At times,  the Executive Council hasn’t included everyone with a ministerial portfolio.  And on occasion pretty well every cabinet will throw everyone out of the room and discuss something entirely among themselves.  But there might never be a paper for them to read in advance, a note, a presentation or anything of the sort.

To give you a sense of how cabinets operate,  consider that, until 1989,  cabinet didn’t keep minutes like most boards and committees do.  Cabinet met.  They talked about things.  The only record of any decision would be the official “minute” issued by the cabinet secretariat and approved by the lieutenant governor.  That’s what made the decision the legal authority someone would need to carry it out.

Even the form of the minute varies.  These days,  it includes a list of people who get a copy.  There’s a number on it and the actual statement of the decision includes all sorts of references to the authority cited for making the decision. 

Go back a hundred years and you will find piles of these minutes.  They might be as little as a sentence or two.  The certified minutes, the ones that needed the Governor’s signature, were written out long-hand in a book the Governor kept.

That’s where things get interesting.  Note that the minute above refers to a meeting of the committee of the Executive Council.  The ones a century ago that your humble e-scribbler has been reading lately say pretty much the same thing.  That’s the another way of saying the Executive Council without the lieutenant governor present for the meeting.  These days it is unheard of for the Queen’s representative to attend any meeting of the council, federal or provincial, here in Britain or anywhere else.  A century ago,  a committee of the council – cabinet ministers without the Governor  - met to discuss all sorts of routine things, including budgets.

Back then, there were meetings of the Executive Council.  They took place at Government House and, as near as your humble e-scribbler can figure, they included the Governor. A good example was the meeting held at 3:30 p.m. August 7, 1914 to decide on the Newfoundland contribution to the war.  You can hunt for any record of the meeting in the cabinet papers and you’ll never find a mention.  We know it happened, though, because the Governor refers to to it in letters.  There’s a specific note in his type-written daily diary and the Prime Minister mentions it in a letter or two written around the same time.  We know they discussed a proposal drafted by the Governor two days beforehand, apparently based on discussions with the Prime Minister.  The version cabinet approved is not exactly what the Governor proposed.

There’s no record of that meeting, though, just as there is no record or any other meeting of the whole council during the period from about 1908 to 1914.  There might be others but YHE-S hasn’t gotten to them yet.

There’s nothing odd about that, by the way.  The British cabinet didn’t keep any record of decisions until after the war started.  There could sometimes be a huge gulf among ministers about what, if anything, they’d discussed and decided.  The only formal record of any sort through most of the 19th century was a letter written weekly by successive Prime Ministers to the Queen, for her information.  Even then, what the Prime Minister said cabinet discussed and agreed on might not be what ministers recalled.

Incidentally, for those who might be wondering about the endless trips to Government House to appoint ministers lately, you need only check the Executive Council Act to see that it wasn’t necessary:  “The Lieutenant-Governor in Council” – meaning the whole cabinet – “on the advice of the Premier may appoint a minister as acting minister for another minister during the absence or incapacity for any cause of that other minister, and all acts of an acting minister shall have the same effect as if done by the minister in whose place he or she is acting.” 

They’ve appointed acting ministers countless times over the past decade,  most often to cover off Charlene Johnson when she was on one kind of leave or another.  Tom Marshall could have done exactly the same thing as ministers quit for one reason or another. The only question is why he chose to swear in new ministers and shuffle his cabinet around all the time.

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Avoiding a cabinet shuffle #nlpoli

By the end of the week,  Premier Tom Marshall will be short at least two cabinet ministers.

Paul Davis quit as health minister on Wednesday and Steve Kent is expected to follow on Thursday as both vie for the party leadership.

On top of that he’s missing Joan Shea who quit last month.

Some think Tom will shuffle the cabinet.  He could do that, except that he doesn’t really have much to shuffle with.  On top of that, he’d also be stuffing people into cabinet who the new leader might not want to face as a cabinet minister in the middle of September.

Tom doesn’t have to shuffle his cabinet at all.  This is the slow time of the year as Trevor Taylor laughingly put it or, to be more accurate,  everything is on hold anyway while the party sorts out its leadership mess.

Therefore, Tom can rely on his table of alternate ministers,  established by order in council at the last major shuffle in May.  That’s the official list of substitutions to cover periods when the appointed minister of a department is out of town or incapacitated.

Paul Davis is gone.  Between Susan Sullivan as first alternate and Sandy Collins as second, the job of health minister will get done.   And if Susan goes, Sandy can get the job as stand in.

Over in municipal affairs, Fairity O’Brien will fill in.

And if Susan Sullivan jumps into the race – as she should given Paul Davis’ weak, amateurish  launch on Wednesday - there’s someone to replace her, using the same table.

Pas de sweat.

If Tom needs to have someone fill in on a temporary basis other than the alternates table,  he can do that using powers in the Executive Council Act and something called the Crown or Royal Prerogative.  It takes a cabinet order but surely the crowd running the place can manage to do that, as they did in 2013,  all without the show of a cabinet shuffle.  It’s really just paper work after all.

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Cabinet Shuffle Bored #nlpoli

The provincial Conservative Party is in the midst of such an intense revival of interest only about a dozen people turned out on Wednesday night for the annual general meeting of the district association in Mount Pearl South.

They were there to elect delegates to the party convention in July.  Even though there’s no leadership contest, you’d expect that a party on the rebound might manage to attract more than 12 or so to a delegate selection meeting.

A few weeks ago all of 126 people turned out in Charlene Johnson’s district and that was when they actually still had a leadership race.  That’s 10 times the number that showed up in Mount Pearl.  It is still a far cry from what the Liberals – in about the same spot in 2001 as the Conservatives these days - managed to turn out in their leadership contest at the time.  It’s also a far cry from what Conservatives turned out in their past either.

Renewal and revival just aren’t what they used to be or what they seem or something.

Sex and the cabinet #nlpoli

If all the speculation about a cabinet shuffle in the near future turns out to be true, it will be interesting to see if Premier Kathy Dunderdale breaks the fundamentally sexist nature of her current cabinet.

Kathy Dunderdale is justifiably proud of being the first woman premier in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history.  The fact that she is the first woman to hold the job is what makes her choice of cabinet ministers stand out a bit. Frankly, it’s a wee bit odd that no one has mentioned a curious pattern that appeared.

Polls, Politicians, and Messages #nlpoli

Cabinet is where the real political power sits in a parliamentary democracy. Ministers have enormous power both individually and collectively.

Only the first minister – the prime minister or premier – gets to decide who sits at the cabinet table. That’s a power first ministers are always careful to preserve because it is the ultimate expression of their control over their caucus.  People want to get to cabinet and the only way in is through the premier.

Changes in cabinet are often rumoured but until they happen, they are not real.  Only the premier and her closest, most trusted advisors know what is coming.  They only tell the people involved at the last possible moment.  The expectation  - often a clearly spoken expectation - is that the people who know will keep their mouths firmly shut. 

So when CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane can report that a cabinet shuffle is imminent, attributing information to multiple unnamed but apparently high-ranking Tories, you can understand that Kathy Dunderdale’s administration is in far more serious political trouble than it first appeared.

The Apprentice #nlpoli

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.''

It’s a great quote even if it has been misattributed to a raft of people, including someone named Petronius Arbiter who lived so long ago that some people can’t even agree on whether or not he was a Roman or a Greek.

But the quote is still appropriate, especially if you look at the provincial government.

Remember how in an earlier post, your humble e-scribbler noted that last weeks second Dunderdale cabinet was a lot less than it was cracked up to be?

Well, in the Tuesday Telegram Joan Burke gave an amazing insight into just exactly how the Tories came to create this new department Burke is running. Be warned before you go read the whole thing that it is a puff piece of the first order, but do read the whole piece just because of what it tells you about how the current administration functions.

At its core, Burke said the shift is about apprentices, skilled trades and filling the jobs of the future.

…

“The whole apprenticeship issue has become more and more complicated,” Burke said.

“We have 6,000 apprentices registered in the province, so where are they? You know, we should be well underway of filling all the labour gaps.”

On the very first full day of the election campaign this fall, Premier Kathy Dunderdale promised to do more about apprentices.

At the time she called it a “bottleneck” in the skilled trades process.

It was the apprenticeship issue, primarily, that drove the marriage between Education and HRLE, Burke said.

A single issue led the government to create a whole new department that consumes not only the university but also the entire government apparatus designed to deliver income support to thousands of residents of the province.

Now it is by no means a trivial matter, but sorting out a problem with apprentices is no reason to create a whole new department.  That’s the sort of issue that comes up all the time in government.  What happens?  Well, usually someone gets told to sort it out.  Could be a deputy minister or it could be a cabinet minister or a group of cabinet ministers.

As for the labour shortage, that’s an old issue.  The report mentioned in the article actually just gives the latest description of a problem that’s been identified for a decade or more. 

Again, it’s not a problem that needs a whole new department to figure out.  If the schools that train skilled trades workers haven’t been doing their job in meeting known market demands, a new department won’t fix that.  This is the sort of stuff they are already supposed to be doing. 

And if they aren’t doing it, then that seems to be a high-end management problem:

• People who are supposed to decide things apparently aren’t deciding., or,
• There’s a problem getting word out about decisions, or,
• People who are supposed to decide things farther down the food chain are too frightened to take decisions, or,
• They are so pre-occupied with chasing their tails that they can’t get on with the job of governing.

Creating this new department is starting to look more like a sign of the underlying problem than an answer to it.  This is, after all, a government that can’t seem to get its capital works done, that has legislation laying about unfinished and that seems to have a chronic problem managing more than one issue at a time.

Re-organizing makes it look like something is going on when it actually isn’t.

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Related:

• Massive cost over-runs now par for the course
• One Judge Short
• The Court Security Acts
• The missing Sustainable Development Act
• “And there shall be plans…”
• One thing at a time in Labrador
• The Le Petomane School of Government
• There’s no greater fraud…

Truth in small things #nlpoli

If the truth may be found in the smallest of things, then the shifts and changes in Kathy Dunderdale’s second cabinet reveal a great deal.

“It is very important to me that our government operates as efficiently as possible, while providing quality programs and services that meet the needs of the people of our province,” said Premier Dunderdale. “Re-aligning departments and adjusting ministries to ensure they are best positioned to take on the challenges and opportunities before us is very important.”

Here’s how the official news release laid out the re-aligning and adjusting:

• Combine the old Human Resources, Labour and Employment department with the post-secondary education section of the Education department to create the  Department of Advanced Education and Skills.  The new department will “focus on supplying highly educated graduates and skilled workers for a fast-growing economy.”
• Merge the aboriginal affairs department with the Intergovernmental Affairs department to create the Department of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs.
• Put the Business department with Innovation, Trade and Rural Development to create Innovation, Business and Rural Development.

This release puts the big information at the back end.  Eliminating the business department ends an eight year fiasco. In effect, the Conservatives created the “business” department in 2003 by breaking off some sections of the industry, trade and rural development department.  Now they’ve just put it all back the way it was, complete with the Beaton Tulk-era Rural Secretariat

After eight years of accomplishing nothing, the Conservatives have just put the economic development resources of government back to where they were in 2003. Danny Williams created the department to give a vehicle for his personal business acumen to create thousands of jobs and single-handedly produce a economic miracle in the province.  Williams did nothing while he was minister of his own department, often going weeks without meeting his deputy minister. He handed it off to a succession of second and third tier ministers like Fairity O’Brien or Paul Oram.  Even someone like Ross Wiseman couldn’t do anything except make speeches and hand out gobs of free cash to private companies.

The result of those eight years is a very fragile economy is is more heavily dependent than ever on government spending. The new minister – Keith Hutchings – has exactly zilch in the experience department when it comes to economic development:

Mr. Hutchings graduated from Memorial University with a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring in Political Science and obtained a Certificate in Public Administration from Memorial, as well as an Occupational Health and Safety Program from Ryerson University in Toronto.

Mr. Hutchings’ professional career has included 11 years with the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission. He also served as Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to then Leader of the Official Opposition in the Provincial House of Assembly (1996 -1998) and successfully ran his own consulting business.

The Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs department basically recreates what used to exist 20 years and more ago as the Intergovernmental Affairs secretariat, and adds Labrador Affairs and the non-profit and voluntary secretariat for good measure. The first two are relatively small, functionally oriented sections that could easily be rolled inside the Executive Council where they once lived.  The latter two sections are meaningless political sops that serve only to increase bureaucracy without enhancing service delivery. Dunderdale could have eliminated them entirely while likely improving the overall efficiency of government.

The ministry went to newbie Keith McGrath in order to make sure there was a cabinet minister from Labrador. This reorganization is a minor administrative change.

The new Advanced Education department actually combines the pre-2003 post-secondary education ministry with the department that handled job training programs.  That’s it. 

The organization makes sense if it was aimed solely at ensuring that the provincial job-training resources lined up to meet – belatedly – the labour crunch in the province. 

Adding Memorial University to the mix could severely hinder the university’s development by burying it inside a department aimed at something other than what it does.  Memorial doesn’t exist in order to be a glorified trade school.

This is Joan Burke’s big reward for backing Dunderdale, nothing more, nothing less.

What’s more interesting about the labour market focus of the department is that it won’t include any of the labour relations elements.  They are all part of the provincial government’s traditional function of regulating industry and ensuring a healthy and productive labour relations climate.

But under the most recent re-organization, the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission reports to the government services department and the labour relations agency reports to the environment department. Such a re-alignment ensures that the “silos” the new minister claims the re-organization would cure remain in place.

In  every other respect and distinct from these three adjustments, the departmental organization stays the same. 

When it comes to who got a new job and who didn’t, those seemingly small points also tell a larger story.

Besides Joan Burke, Susan Sullivan got a big reward for her political loyalty to the Premier. She takes over the health portfolio.  Sullivan may not feel quite so lucky in a few weeks or months – health is a difficult portfolio – but it is the largest department and the one that typically goes to those the Premier holds in high regard. If she does well, Sullivan could become a contender to replace Dunderdale when the Premier leaves before 2015.

Jerome Kennedy’s new gig at natural resources gives him a well-deserved respite from the health minister’s job. Kennedy took over that job at a hard time and navigated the department though some tough times.  he got out of it with both his health and his reputation intact.  That’s a rare achievement.

At natural resources, Kennedy faces the challenge of mounting problems with the Muskrat Falls project.  Kennedy can be a forceful proponent for an argument like Muskrat Falls.  He can also be a diligent house-cleaner when problems occur. if Dunderdale had to kill off Muskrat, Kennedy could handle that effectively too.

In the next four years, Kennedy will also have to deal with the border issue in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the future of a string of law suits related to the Lower Churchill. 

Danny Williams appointed Kathy Dunderdale to natural resources safe in the knowledge that he was really looking after things.  He didn’t need a minister who understood much and Dunderdale fit the bill.  With Kennedy, Dunderdale has a minister who will – in all likelihood – lead this crucial department in more than name only and take the heightened public profile along with it.  Kennedy could be well set when Dunderdale leaves.

Kennedy’s appointment as Government House Leader is a clear sign the Conservatives are going to approach the legislature with a strong arm and an iron fist.

Darin King took the poisoned chalice of fisheries in the recent cabinet shuffle.  The provincial Conservatives haven’t been able to find a policy they can all agree on.  As a result, the fishery remains a festering political pustule that breaks from time to time, splattering the minister of the moment. King can kiss his leadership aspirations good-bye.

Derrick Dalley got the Conservatives’ community pork portfolio as minister of  tourism, culture and recreation.  He succeeds Terry French who got a quiet and relatively easy portfolio in what is usually the home of ministers on the way into cabinet or those on the way out.

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Quickie Cabinet Reaction: Happy Campers #nlpoli

1. If you don’t want the job, then quit:  All these people in cabinet and every one looks like they have had something shoved up inside them, sideways.  Even Kathy Dunderdale herself looks sour as sour can be in the picture illustrating the online CBC story.
2. Big Winner:  The NDP.  The insurgent Dippers got a huge boost from Kathy Dunderdale as she seemed to take some policy advice from Danny Dumaresque and the Liberals.  By leaving out representation from Mount Pearl and St. John’s, Kathy Dunderdale gave the four Dipper MHAs every excuse they needed to hammer away at the provincial government on every issue from roads to health care.  The Tories at Tammany Hall  - Doc O’Keefe chief amongst them - won’t be able to cope with the political fall-out, especially if Dunderdale has to cut and chop anything. In fact,  if Doc and the gang are serious about changing municipal funding options, Kathy Dunderdale just gave them all the big middle finger.  That just plays into the Dipper expansion plans.
3. Big Loser:  Darin King.  With this appointment, Kathy Dunderdale sent Darin to his political doom.
4. The people who whispered in The Sister’s ear about a wellness portfolio need to check their sources. You know who you are.
5. Lorraine Michael needs Cultural Awareness Lessons:  On Thursday, NDP leader Lorraine Michael told reporters “I really don't think we need two ministers for Labrador, one called the Minister of Labrador Affairs and the other Aboriginal Affairs. I think it's totally unnecessary.”  There are aboriginal people all across the province.  Michael displayed a truly remarkable level of ignorance by trying to claim that the aboriginal affairs a portfolio is only related to Labrador.

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Cabinet swearing in at 10 AM #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale will be at Government House to see her second cabinet sworn in at 10:00 AM..

SRBP will will have the run-down later on Friday.

 

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The fine art of cabinet making #nlpoli

One of these people will replace Shawn Skinner as Capital City’s man in cabinet:

• Tom Osborne
• John Dinn
• Dan Crummell

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Cabinet Shuffle Bored

The back room plan to slide Kathy Dunderdale into the Premier’s job isn’t going so well.

The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight is back shooting itself in the foot.

Kathy Dunderdale meets with Danny Williams one day and then the next day there is a surprise cabinet shuffle that Dunderdale explains with some lame comment about getting fresh blood and shifting ministers around to give them experience.

That is most definitely NOT what this is about.

Oh and to be really sure, you can guarantee that it is not about Dunderdale “picking her key lieutenants” as CBC has been presenting it. None of the portfolios involved are biggies.  This is purely a shuffling around at the bottom end of the cabinet list.

So what is it about?

Well, for Derrick Dalley it is a huge promotion that can only mean he is in serious political trouble in his district.  Danny’s coat-tails were barely enough to get him elected last time and without the Old Man, that seat is likely to flip.  This way Dalley gets a nice boost in pay and a higher profile.

Dalley has no background in business so sticking him in that portfolio makes no sense at all.

Charlene Johnson got a sweet little promotion after years of slogging it out in a  department that is usually a starter department for ministers.  She’s a loyal Dan-ite so giving her a higher profile helps bolster the back-room deal crowd:  she takes direction very well.  Johnson’s never shown signs of understanding the portfolio she had and she’s unlikely to inject anything other than further listlessness in a new department that is still struggling.

Here’s hoping there are no more giant controversies in a department known to generate nasty headlines. Charlene had a tough time even with Danny on the ground to shore her up.  With the Old Man out of the picture, she could be a major disaster waiting to happen. 

Ross Wiseman slides downward to environment and conservation.  He isn’t likely to run again so this just keeps around one of the Dan-ite stalwarts until Dunderdale gets through the current crisis and the spring budget.

Darin King gets a huge demotion.  The leadership hopeful and likely internal dissident got the big ole bitch slap for something.  Like he’s paying a double price that includes a bill for the shitstorm he caused by trying to do his old job at Eastern School District.  Darin’s school reorganization is a cock-up of monumental proportions since it has served only to agitate voters needlessly in seats the Conservatives normally would call safe. 

Joan Burke is being called back to the limelight likely to clean up Darin’s mess.  It’s a novel concept and logically, Burke’s arrival should mean the plan goes in the bin.  Burke’s usual approach would be like adding gasoline to a political fire and even Dunderdale couldn’t blunder that badly. 

Putting her back in charge of education also gives Burke the chance to raise her profile again in anticipation of the leadership race that will inevitably follow the next election. 

Everyone knows Dunderdale is just a placeholder.  Well, everyone except people who think she is promoting her key lieutenants for the next election.

Sheesh, what a head-slapper of an idea.

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Scrum Update:  Take a watch of the post-swearing in scrum. The most over-used line – after Charlene talking about “the children” and how important they are -  is the effort to portray this as some sort of renewal and refreshment.

The cliché is so over-worn that all you’d have to say is “deck chairs” but everyone will know instantly how true it is as a description of Thursday’s cabinet shuffle.

As for Darin King, notice that he spoke last of all and started by thanking Dunderdale for the privilege of serving.  If anyone has any doubt that this guy is being punished then let them watch the scrum and seen the proof.

Constant motion = more delays and nothing new

In the perpetual shuffle process that is the provincial cabinet and senior public service under Danny Williams, three more changes took place on Friday.

Terry French, a parliamentary secretary and by-election organizer finally got his reward of a the extra salary that comes for sitting at the cabinet table.  He’s the last of the crowd elected before 2003 to get the extra.

Tom Hedderson evidently did such a miserable job in fisheries that he has been relieved of that purgatory and given the patronage portfolio.  Meanwhile, Clyde Jackman must be wondering who he pissed off to get fisheries from Tom Hedderson.

All in all, this turned out to be a set of appointments of such monumental nothingness that it makes one wonder why it took the Premier two whole months to figure out what to do.

You may recall that these shuffles were the cascading effect of Trevor Taylor’s departure  - which the Premier knew of before it happened and could therefore plan to handle – and the resignation of Paul Oram.  he lashed a few people into temporary jobs to get over the immediate hump, then lashed up a few more to cope with Diane Whelan’s illness.

Well, after all that time, the Premier didn’t do very much for all the cogitating he supposedly wanted to do. Perhaps he was too busy trying to figure out how many of his personal political staff could crowd into the backrooms of Sandy Collins’ campaign headquarters to make sure Sandy won the by-election in Terra Nova. The answer:  all of ‘em. 

All this comes on the eve of what will be a shortened fall session of  a provincial legislature with the ignominious distinction of sitting annually for fewer days than Tom Rideout was Premier back in 1989.

Very little legislation is likely to come forward.  There is plenty that is missing in action:  Grenfell autonomy, whistleblower protection, midwives.

As noted here before, the seemingly perpetual micro shuffles coupled with a few other things seem to produce a government which cannot actually do very much. 

They talk a lot about doing stuff but produce very little of substance.

And when they do produce something worthwhile, like say an act to provide for sustainable economic development, they don’t proclaim the thing.  Two years and not a peep on it.

Even a strategy on how to keep young people from,leaving the province to find work took 18 months, cost untold thousands and ended up with some really obvious ideas.

The first one was:  “create jobs”.

No wonder people sometimes wonder if your humble e-scribbler makes this stuff up.

Would but that were true.

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Lash-up

With municipal affairs minister Diane Whelan hospitalized with an undisclosed but reportedly very serious illness, the Premier shuffles a few more portfolios off to ministers on a temporary basis with no sign of a permanent set up.

Whelan was already carrying the temporary assignments resulting from Trevor Taylor’s surprise resignation.

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Shuffle-up-a-gus

How often are there cabinet changes and shifts in the senior bureaucracy?

While there is no text-book solution to that question, aside from elections, resignations and political meltdowns, there usually aren’t a lot of shakeups in a team government.

The reasons are pretty simple.  Cabinet ministers and senior officials (deputy ministers and assistant deputies)  are expected to get to know their departments and the people in them, to form good working relationships and then get on with the business of running their respective shows.  cabinet will send down some instructions.  Departments are expected to come up with new ideas.

In order to do that, people have to spend time working together.  They need time to learn the issues and figure out what happens when you pull the lever over there in the corner.

All of that applies equally to both the political side of departmental management (the cabinet minister) and the public servants (deputy ministers and assistant deputies). 

In the eight years between 1996 and October 2003, successive Liberal premiers changed their cabinets (major and minor changes) 11 times. 

In the five and a half years since the fall 2003 election, the current administration has made changes to cabinet 12 times. The bulk of that shifting came in the first term, with at least two changes in assignments involving some ministers roughly every six months.

Over on the public service side, the relative numbers are even more dramatic.

Liberals:  24 appointments over eight years.

Progressive Conservatives:  37 in five and a half years or so.

Now some of these announcements were onesies and twosies, that is one appointment at a time.  In other cases, like the one made today, the changes have involved seven or eight people in different departments. 

Two of the appointments made Tuesday were for people filling jobs in an acting capacity while the person normally in the job is one some form of leave.  In some instances, there have been times when the top two positions in one department have both been acting simultaneously.  That hasn’t happened a lot but it has happened.

While changes at the cabinet level have been relatively infrequent since 2007, the same can;’t be said on the executive side.  Eight changes in 2005, but 11 in 2007, five in 2008 and four already in 2009. 

Beyond the frequency, your humble e-scribbler hasn’t finished a detailed assessment yet to see who has been moving and if there are any departments that have been the focus of the changes.

Still…

the numbers are striking.

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