Opposition Leader Bill Graham has named his caucus critics. There’s a lot of them: 41 critics and 38 associate critics to watch a cabinet of 26 people. On top of that, there are seven Liberal MPs with caucus officer positions, like Whip or Deputy House Leader. So, in a caucus 101 MPs, 86 Liberals are critics, associate critics or caucus officers.
The full list has some other highlights:
- Michael Ignatieff is not a critic. He is the associate critic for Human Resources and Skills Development. (Minister is Diane Finley). The critic is Geoff Regan.
- Ignatieff is the only MP whose name has been bandied about as a possible leadership contender without a critic’s job. Other posssible leadership contenders with a critic’s job (which gives them a higher profile during Question Period) include: Scott Brison, Belinda Stronach, Maurizio Bevilicqua, Denis Coderre, Stephane Dion, John Godfrey and Joe Volpe.
- Former Prime Minister Paul Martin is not a critic — a move that was widely expected.
- Ujjal Dossanjh is National Defence Critic (Minister is Gordon O’Connor)
- Couple of interesting Quebec matchups: Jean Lapierre is critic to Industry Minister Maxime Bernier and Coderre is critic to Minister of Labour Jean-Pierre Blackburn
- Sue Barnes, who was Irwin Cotler’s parliamentary secretary in the last Parliament, is the Justice Critic (Minister is Vic Toews).
- Brison will be the critic to Rona Ambrose in Environment.
- John McCallum is the Finance Critic (Finance Minister is Jim Flaherty)