View From the Legislature

It took him a while to get around to it, but NDP Premier Greg Selinger finally shuffled his cabinet last week. After several months of having a part-time Finance Minister and a half-time Minister of Agriculture, the NDP have settled on a new cabinet.

In many respects, after 11 years of government, the cabinet shuffle doesn’t do much to change things. While two new faces were brought into the NDP cabinet, it is unlikely that much will change when it comes to the philosophy of a government that is spending a billion dollars a year more than it brings in.

While one can hope that the new Minister of Agriculture, the MLA for Swan River, will stand up for farmers there is little in the NDP track record on farming issues to suggest things will change.

For example, this week while at Ag. Days in Brandon the NDP Minister of Agriculture said that he was looking forward to seeing the pork industry grow in Manitoba. While this sounded positive, the 11 year record of this government would suggest the NDP would like to see the industry done away with in the province.

Where there was an opportunity to send a message that things were going to change was in the size of the cabinet. Across the country, as a reflection of the uncertain economic times and the fact that governments are wrestling with debt, Premiers have been reducing the size of their cabinets. Reducing the number of ministers in Manitoba would have sent a message that there is a need to cutback where possible. It would have at least symbolically shown that the NDP recognized the problem.

Mr. Selinger however did not reduce the size of his cabinet and instead actually created an entirely new ministry of government. Even a reduction in the size of cabinet of one might have sent the signal that the NDP government is serious about reducing the annual deficit (which has ballooned to more than a billion dollars) and the accumulated debt. While the NDP are suggesting during their pre-budget consultation meetings that they are in fact concerned about the deficit, they are not concerned enough to show that within their own cabinet they are going to curtail spending.

So while it is positive that the province once again has a full-time Finance Minister it seems doubtful that much will change in the philosophy of the government itself. The failure to rein in the size of cabinet likely means the NDP have no real plans to rein in the size of the deficit or debt of Manitoba. Which means that while some of the faces may have changed, not much else has.