In this episode, we look ahead to the new Alberta premier, Daniel Smith, swearing in her second cabinet. We talk about what to expect from the new cabinet, who to expect to be in it, and what to look out for.
00:00:00.000So election's over. Daniel Smith is still the premier. And she gets to swear in her second cabinet. Her first cabinet, she inherited largely from Jason Kenney. She made some changes, removed a few, most notably Jason Nixon, who was kind of Kenney's right-hand man and who had inserted himself into the leadership race in a, I think, a way that most people found was grossly inappropriate.
00:00:27.040So he was out. And he was very unpopular with people who opposed mandates and things like that because we've just seen it's too close to Kenney. Rick McIver, a longtime PC minister under Alison Redford and Jim Prentice, and then again under Jason Kenney, he was removed, although that was a bit more surprising.
00:00:47.020And he was the interim leader of the PCs after they lost the 2015 election. There were a number of changes. She brought in some, but it was overall more or less still kind of Jason Kenney's cabinet. Didn't want to rock the boat too, too much.
00:01:00.080Oh, and brought in Todd Lowen, who not only just came into the cabinet, but came into the caucus itself after being exiled by Jason Kenney.
00:01:07.460I don't want to get into the specifics yet. We're going to talk about individual ministers you expect to be in or not to be in.
00:01:16.120We'll start with you, Corey, on what you generally are expecting from Smith's first new cabinet now.
00:01:22.740Are you expecting more or less a continuation of the previous cabinet or something entirely new?
00:01:28.840Well, I, it's a tough question. I mean, whether she's going to want to make her mark now and break away now that she has a mandate or, or carry on.
00:01:38.220You know, because she's got a limited caucus now compared to what she'd had before, she doesn't quite have the leeway to really shuffle too, too much from before.
00:01:46.560I mean, we've got some inexperienced caucus members. I think there's going to be some eye raisers in there, though.
00:01:51.500I mean, her relationships with different MLAs that are in there that we're only just seeing development is, I do believe she's going to want to make this hers.
00:01:58.380As you said, she's been kind of carrying the remnants of Jason Kenney's cabinet for a while.
00:02:02.480She's going to want some distinctions in there that are definitely her own that she didn't have, I think, going into this election.
00:02:09.100Nigel, how big a change? Of course, some changes necessitated.
00:02:12.920There are MLAs there who weren't there before, and there are some ministers who were in cabinet before but aren't there now.
00:02:21.500Kenny's cabinet was particularly urban and, in particular, Calgary urban heavy, and that's where nearly all of the losses for the UCP and the Electric came from was in Calgary.
00:02:33.960So, by necessity, some of these people are just not going to be in cabinet.
00:02:37.680But how big a change are you expecting this cabinet to be over her previous cabinet, which was, you know, in large measure but not entirely, still had a significant number of holdovers from Kenny?
00:02:49.340Well, I'll tell you what I'm expecting, and I'll tell you what I'm hoping.
00:02:53.540My expectation is, as you said, so many of the last group, the last cadre, have lost the election or retired from the game of politics.
00:03:05.160But out of the 24 cabinet positions that she announced in October, eight of those are gone.
00:03:10.340So, she has a choice to make a smaller cabinet, but it's not going to be an order of magnitude smaller, that you would only have, you know, 20.
00:03:20.280Some of those, some of those ministries just don't mesh well together.
00:03:24.360So, she's going to have to come up with 20, 21, 22 names, I'm sure.
00:03:28.500And my expectation is that she will look favorably on the people who supported her during the run-up.