Source : Globe & Mail

Even those Chrétienites who have been fingered as members of the new Martin government may be shown the door in six months

Prime Minister Paul Martin dramatically recast his predecessor's cabinet yesterday, but it was only the first step toward even larger changes should the Liberals win the next election.

Twenty-two new ministers entered the 39-person cabinet. Some of the holdovers, however, are keeping seats warm. They will either not run in the election, or will be replaced even if they do run and win.

The result in six months -- assuming another Liberal victory -- will be further changes that will leave only a corporal's guard of ministers remaining from the Chrétien years. The same party would be in power, but with a very different cast of characters. It's a political bet that Canadians who want change will find it within the Liberal Party.

The list of high-profile casualties from the Chrétien era is already long: among others, John Manley, Sheila Copps, Herb Dhaliwal, Jane Stewart, Martin Cauchon, Stéphane Dion, Robert Nault, Don Boudria, Lyle Vanclief, Susan Whelan, David Collenette, and Allan Rock, appointed Ambassador to the United Nations yesterday. The list will get longer before or after the next election.

The result of the actual and forthcoming purge is to make this cabinet Paul Martin's, and Paul Martin's alone. Any conceivable leadership pretender has been banished. Anyone closely identified with the previous regime has been or will be shown the door, replaced by those faithful to the Martin cause during the long twilight struggle within the Liberal Party between Mr. Martin and Jean Chrétien.

Other results are the numerical ascendancy of Ontario -- 17 of 39 members -- and the conferring of three hugely important positions on Western Canadians: Finance Minister Ralph Goodale of Saskatchewan, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan of Alberta and Treasury Board President Reg Alcock of Manitoba. David Anderson of British Columbia remains Environment Minister. It will be a tricky post given Mr. Martin's oft-stated unhappiness with the lack of a coherent plan for meeting Canada's climate-change commitments -- despite Mr. Anderson's insistence that such a plan exists and that he designed it. Senator Jack Austin from British Columbia, who is very close to Mr. Martin, will be Government Leader in the Senate.

Quebec, by contrast, has only eight ministers plus, of course, the most important post of all, Prime Minister. This relative weakness was quickly noted by Quebec observers, as was the unilingualism of Mr. Goodale and Ms. McLellan.

Some of the ministers won't be around long. Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw, for example, might be moved to make room for former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna. Rey Pagtakhan from Winnipeg won't last if the city's mayor, Glen Murray, runs.

When Mr. Chrétien recruited Lucienne Robillard, he plunked her into Montreal's Westmount-Ville Marie riding, traditionally represented by an anglophone. The result was that the province's English-speaking population lacked cabinet representation, something corrected yesterday with the appointment of Irwin Cotler, a distinguished McGill law professor, as Justice Minister.

Mr. Cotler, therefore, emerged as a big winner in this new cabinet, vaulting from the backbench to one of the top-six portfolios.

Four others jumped into important portfolios. David Pratt, a persistent booster of more spending for the military, gets to try for that objective as Defence Minister. Tony Valeri from the Hamilton area becomes Transport Minister, although he will be preoccupied in the weeks ahead with battling for nomination in a new riding against Ms. Copps.

Geoff Regan of Nova Scotia gets to beat his head against the Fisheries Department. John Efford of Newfoundland becomes Minister of Natural Resources -- perhaps, just perhaps, a sign that the Martin government will try to give Newfoundland (and Nova Scotia) a better deal for their offshore resources.

Two new women ministers will definitely be worth following. Judy Sgro of Toronto becomes Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, always an important portfolio for her city and for a party that is the overwhelming choice of new Canadian voters. And Hélène Scherrer from Quebec City becomes Heritage Minister. That post had been widely thought to be destined for another newcomer, Liza Frulla, but she may have killed her chances by blabbing so often about getting the job. She became instead Minister of Social Development, one of the two ministers created from the previously oversized Department of Human Resources Development.

The splitting up of HRDC was long overdue. So, too, Ms. McLellan's new department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness recognizes the need to co-ordinate better Ottawa's efforts for internal and external security, in part as a gesture toward U.S. concerns about security within North America.

As with further cabinet changes, more significant structural changes, such as recreating a Department of Communications, will await the next Liberal mandate, assuming the party earns one. Changing the structure of government takes years, and the Prime Minister obviously decided that greater changes would be too disruptive before the next election.

With so many new ministers, the already awesome power of the PM and his staff will be enhanced. A cabinet with many veterans can always be managed by the centre; one with so few can easily be dominated by the centre.

Mr. Martin, who once complained about the centralization of power in the Prime Minister's Office, has on paper aggrandized the responsibility of that office. Mr. Martin will chair four cabinet committees. He has appointed three personal advisers -- for aboriginal affairs, science and national security, and as well has created three new secretariats in the Privy Council reporting to him for aboriginals, science and national security. And, as a former minister of finance, Mr. Martin will be more intimately involved in the budget's preparation than most prime ministers.

Against this trend will press another: Mr. Martin's determination to enhance the influence of ordinary MPs. This will make getting things done in Parliament more difficult, or at least time-consuming. Swearing in parliamentary secretaries as privy councillors signals the enhanced role for MPs.

The minister responsible for "democratic reform" is Jacques Saada, a highly respected backbencher from Quebec who was excluded by Mr. Chrétien but now has one of the cabinet's important posts. It's important because Mr. Martin has staked his colours to parliamentary reform, and it will be Mr. Saada's job to steer those changes through the Commons.

All cabinets, cabinet committees and the structure of caucus reflect the preferred working style of the Prime Minister, and this one is no exception. Mr. Martin genuinely believes that through extensive discussion come better decisions. This cabinet, with its committees, and this caucus, with its new responsibilities, may be unwieldy, but it's the Prime Minister's style. And make no mistake, he's going to dominate this government.

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