Juno News - What does Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle mean for Canadians？

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 we are going to talk a little bit about the cabinet changes we saw today but i want to

00:00:12.660 focus on the bigger picture which is that it's easy to look at the list of ministers and say

00:00:16.700 oh well you know bill blair went to defense and uh this guy went to emergency preparedness and

00:00:22.540 anita annand went from defense to uh treasury board and all of these things but but it's 1.00

00:00:27.880 less easy to look at this and say that none of it really matters that this is not actually an issue

00:00:35.880 that will change anything materially about the function or lack of functionality in this

00:00:42.220 government now what was interesting here is that it wasn't just about the shuffling of the deck

00:00:47.840 chair deck chairs on the titanic so to speak there were some pretty key promotions some rookies it's

00:00:53.200 now a backbencher a riff of irani that went up to be the minister of justice and then you had some

00:00:59.000 pretty senior people who have been trudeau loyalists for their time in cabinet that are now finding

00:01:03.740 themselves relegated to the backbenches and some of those did the whole face-saving exercise

00:01:09.880 yesterday of saying oh it's because i'm not running again that was omar algabra's line but

00:01:16.220 some of them have not actually said whether they're running again so marco mendicino

00:01:20.080 assuming he manages to like find his way back to his office which i think is a stroke of a stroke

00:01:26.720 of luck every day if he does uh he hasn't actually done the whole i'm not running again thing he just

00:01:31.540 gave this statement this morning in which he talked about how grateful he was and how proud he was and

00:01:37.280 how great justin trudeau is and how he did so much good stuff in cabinet and oh there we have the

00:01:42.680 letter there if you haven't read through it all and you can't see it uh and you can't read it don't

00:01:46.600 worry neither can marco but the thing about it that i would point out is that it's like

00:01:50.860 the guy was fired and he's somehow been head faked into writing this letter about just how great it was

00:01:59.020 and how honored he was and and all of that when he was like the biggest embarrassment in the trudeau

00:02:04.700 cabinet uh aaron woodrick joins us now he is the guru on all things domestic policy at the mcdonald

00:02:11.160 laurier institute now that's not actually how it's listed on his resume at least not last time i

00:02:16.140 checked uh aaron good to talk to you as always thanks for coming on today always great to be

00:02:20.400 here andrew i mean look you've been around politics for a while you know the game here

00:02:24.660 what are the reasons for a shuffle of this magnitude well you know especially what i call

00:02:30.340 late stage government any government that's getting into second term or later um you know they

00:02:35.280 need to put on a fresh face just because people are kind of getting sick and tired of them

00:02:38.740 um they want to present themselves as being able to uh you know reform themselves right when the

00:02:44.500 public you saw polls today there's a huge appetite for change right and this happens you know to every

00:02:49.640 government after a certain amount of time although i'd argue this government's uh certainly speeding

00:02:53.480 up the process more than than other ones do um so by presenting new people in cabinet you can sort of

00:02:59.420 at least superficially make the argument that you know what we're technically a new government we

00:03:02.900 have different people in charge but as i think uh you know pierre probably just pointed out

00:03:07.660 really in our system of government it's the prime minister that matters people are associate the

00:03:12.440 prime minister he makes all the calls at the end of the day he's the one who picks all the cabinet

00:03:17.000 hand picks them um so unless the prime minister is is actually being changed it's really hard to make

00:03:22.460 the case that you've got a completely new government yeah and you're right when you talk about the

00:03:27.680 longevity of a government i mean stephen harper ran into this when he was running in 2015 when you've

00:03:33.040 been there for at that time nine years you don't really have much of an excuse for not having done

00:03:39.560 something i mean theoretically you may be responding to a new challenge that's popped up and harper had

00:03:44.540 the refugee crisis national security stuff like that but it's a lot easier to be in opposition when

00:03:49.700 you can look at the government and say they're doing this wrong this wrong this wrong this wrong

00:03:53.320 uh when you're a guy like now justin trudeau who who's been there for uh eight years potentially

00:03:58.920 10 years by the time the next election rolls around it's very difficult for him to convincingly

00:04:04.360 tell people he's going to do something when he's had at that point a decade in which he could have

00:04:08.800 and should have done whatever that thing is sure and look uh part of politics is just gravity right i

00:04:14.580 mean you're there for a long time you pile up a lot of baggage and and you know i i've been a big

00:04:18.800 critic of many many things this government's done but part of it is sort of the death of a thousand

00:04:23.280 cuts right it just builds up over time um and so governments they see cabinet shuffles as a way

00:04:29.560 to try and again i say superficially because frankly i don't think they matter very much i mean i was

00:04:34.740 remarking to someone that can anybody point to me uh historically a cabinet shuffle that really

00:04:39.600 changed the game that had a you know a government that was tired and unpopular and they shoveled some

00:04:44.240 ministers and suddenly their fortunes reverse i mean it just doesn't happen and part of that is

00:04:48.460 because you know uh folks like you and me and folks tuning in we're the weirdos we we pay a lot

00:04:53.040 attention to politics a lot of canadians don't they got busy lives they could not name pick out

00:04:58.380 any of these people out of a police lineup maybe christia freeland uh but the vast majority of these

00:05:03.220 people um they just don't know who they are and so i don't think it really uh helps justin trudeau's

00:05:08.040 fortunes uh when he changes them yeah and i would say generally are probably better off not needing to

00:05:13.440 know because the more you learn about politics the less sane and uh less convivial you are in my

00:05:19.360 experience on these things so i'll ask then about it in a bit of a different approach because

00:05:24.200 you know we may see at some point in the next couple of weeks mandate letters for these ministers

00:05:28.700 but are we expecting anything resembling a change in policy to go along with this because if we are just

00:05:35.100 you know changing around the faces but you're actually making no change to your overall agenda

00:05:39.940 it's really not that convincing a fresh face as you would put it earlier yeah i mean i think what's

00:05:46.000 more important is going to be mandate letters because that signals what the prime minister

00:05:50.240 wants and at the end of the day um especially under this prime minister and i would argue

00:05:54.340 under stephen harper as well you know ministers are only going to be as effective as their boss

00:05:57.980 lets them be and so you know it doesn't really matter how great you are if justin trudeau puts

00:06:02.640 you in a box and says you can only do these two things you know you're kind of limited in what

00:06:07.160 you're able to do one thing i thought was interesting um was that was the assignment of sean

00:06:11.620 fraser to housing so this is a everybody knows housing is a very important file i i think it is

00:06:17.140 the main going to be the main issue in the next election um if it isn't already i think the

00:06:22.280 liberals are tuning into this late in the game um i think they realize that if they don't take some

00:06:26.720 major action on this uh peer probably was going to eat their lunch on housing so uh you know john

00:06:31.620 fraser's uh you know by all accounts been a pretty strong performer in cabinet he's generally well

00:06:35.820 liked um so i think that giving him this portfolio um is a sign that they're probably taking it

00:06:41.540 more seriously yeah and i think that's actually an important point as well that should factor into

00:06:46.580 people's analysis on this is you know who the stronger communicators are when you're putting

00:06:52.500 them on a certain file and i mean i was you know making a few cracks at pablo rodriguez's expense but

00:06:57.620 this is not a guy who i'd say has been a particularly good messenger on bill c11 and bill c18 he has failed

00:07:05.340 to understand uh either by obstinance or just by not being particularly transparent he's failed to

00:07:11.060 understand what his bill does he's uh flip-flopped on what it will do and all these internet

00:07:15.900 regulations and the fact that he's out of that file when the internet regulation file is still alive

00:07:20.820 and well in canada i feel is actually quite noteworthy yeah look communications are obviously

00:07:26.340 important to every government very important to this government in many cases i would argue that from

00:07:30.340 this government's point of view the communications are the deliverable you know actually following through

00:07:34.820 and delivering what you promise doesn't matter it's the press conference and the messaging that they

00:07:38.900 value most because that's where they get their political bank for the buck and for for uh you

00:07:43.480 know pablo rodriguez i mean to be fair it's you know there's only so much lipstick you can put on a

00:07:48.040 pig and bill c18 is a pretty big pig and i don't know that there's any way to message that bill well

00:07:54.560 because it's a terrible bill that is doing a lot of damage to canadian media so uh yes i think there 0.96

00:08:00.820 are other files on things like housing where you know the liberals are doing certain things i don't think

00:08:04.720 they're doing anywhere near enough um on housing but there are a few things they're doing that if

00:08:09.360 they had better comms they could probably get a little bit more credit for it now you had pointed

00:08:13.320 something out on twitter earlier which i found quite funny it was i i don't know which tv network it was

00:08:18.220 but you were watching and they had this like bold observation about the new cabinet that they might

00:08:23.320 you know focus on the economy now yeah they said you know new new cabinet to focus on economy and i

00:08:28.860 thought well what have they been doing for the last eight years that's like a john madden style

00:08:32.620 uh you know political commentary there i'm like oh yeah when the the quarterback goes that'll be a

00:08:37.160 touchdown yeah yeah it's it's a little bit it just makes you think you know you've been there a long

00:08:41.860 time you would have thought they'd come around to the importance of the economy a little bit sooner

00:08:45.840 than today yeah so let's just be a little bit more forward looking here and i know that neither of us

00:08:51.960 has the the crystal ball but we've seen the poll numbers i mean justin trudeau can stand up there

00:08:57.600 and talk about how everything is sunshine and roses christian freeland can go out and talk about

00:09:01.940 oh actually inflation is doing really well right now but canadians are clearly not buying it at least

00:09:07.480 not at this moment in time in the snapshot and sample that was captured by the latest polls i mean

00:09:13.220 what would the turnaround be if you were advising trudeau i mean i might not have you on as much but

00:09:17.720 if you were what would the the message be on how to steer that ship in a better direction

00:09:23.080 boy it's tough it would require a dramatic break from the past right and then this government has

00:09:28.260 shown no capacity to do that i mean justin trudeau has been a prime minister who likes to spend in the

00:09:33.300 bad times and spend at the good times and then spend some more for good measure that's one problem

00:09:37.720 i mean there's just a colossal lot of money that's been going out the door for what i mean spending is

00:09:43.360 up something in the range of 30 i don't think most canadians believe they're getting 30 government

00:09:47.960 services or have a 30 quicker commute or 30 better health care or any of these things so

00:09:53.380 i think there there needs to be a big u-turn there uh i think you know the interesting thing to me was

00:09:58.580 by even having this shovel uh it signals to me that justin trudeau is definitely running in the

00:10:02.900 next election right there's been a lot of talk about whether or not he's going to take a walk in

00:10:06.560 the snow or i guess a walk in the sand because it's summertime i think the fact he had this shuffle

00:10:10.360 suggests he's not going anywhere because why have this shuffle now why try and reset and retool now

00:10:15.340 if he was even thinking remotely of leaving um you know he would have just let the cabinet sit as it

00:10:21.580 is so the fact he's done this tells me he's going to be uh prime minister when the next election is

00:10:26.220 called and it's going to be him versus pierre paulia yeah and i think you're right about that and i think

00:10:31.620 that it's not necessarily wise to go in and try to assess what justin trudeau's mindset is on a

00:10:40.460 particular issue but i i do feel that putting anita anand who was by all accounts actually quite a

00:10:45.260 capable defense minister in treasury board which is certainly an important role to the functioning

00:10:50.000 of government but is a much less public facing role has been a bit interesting because she was

00:10:55.920 one that has been wildly rumored to be a potential leadership contender and not really tarnished in

00:11:02.560 the way that christia freeland are and some other folks are by the trudeau brand so the fact that she's

00:11:07.800 now being taken out of this file i actually think is quite interesting yeah one other observation i had

00:11:13.800 of all the new faces that we see in cabinet they're all relatively low profile folks right

00:11:19.180 these are not the sort of high profile partisan attack dogs that folks will see on social media

00:11:24.220 i'm not going to name names but people can probably guess the mps that we're talking about i was actually

00:11:28.660 pleasantly surprised to see that those folks were not the ones who were promoted right because there

00:11:32.780 are some people who think that you know being a sort of partisan clown on twitter all day is sort of

00:11:38.440 you know doing doing a solid for the team and that gets rewarded by putting these people in cabinet but

00:11:43.580 i think that would be a really perverse incentive so i'm happy to see that for the new people they put

00:11:47.660 in these are relatively low-key uh mps they're not in there because they're like a big name or that

00:11:53.060 they've been sort of lighting the world for you or ticking people off or sort of provoking anger for

00:11:57.960 their opponents um so you know uh we'll see if these are folks that are just quietly confident

00:12:02.660 and you know agree or disagree with this government whoever's in charge uh on a given day it's better

00:12:08.040 that they be competent than than not know what they're doing yeah fair enough you're saying you

00:12:12.260 didn't want attorney general mark garrettson then i i'm not going to name any names andrew you may

00:12:17.240 all right well you're far more diplomatic than i am uh aaron woodrick from the mcdonald laurie

00:12:21.880 institute always a pleasure aaron thanks for coming on today thanks a lot thanks for listening to the

00:12:26.000 andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - July 30, 2023

What does Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle mean for Canadians？

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