Did you catch this? The new list of Parliamentary Secretaries? It was published about a week or so ago by the PMO and is republished today in the Canada Gazette. There are, so far as I can tell, just two changes to the original list:
- Cabinet minister-in-waiting James Moore gets added responsibilities. He was, in the first list, the PS to the Minister of Public Works who is, of course, Senator Michael Fortier and so Moore would be the man on the spot in the House of Commons if that department were ever again in the political spotlight. In this list, Moore, who hails from a Vancouver-area riding, has also become PS to the Minister for Pacific Gateway and the Minister for the Winter Olympics. That minister would be David Emerson — the very fellow who, many believe, is occupying the cabinet position that Moore would have occupied had Emerson not switched parties. Helena Guergis keeps her assignment as Emerson’s PS but will stick mostly to the International Trade side of things.
- Sylvie Boucher takes on a new job as the PS to the Minister Minister of International Cooperation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages. On the first list, Boucher had only to worry about being PS to the Prime Minister. (Jason Kenney seems to be the main PS to the PM, a role that’s unchanged on the new list). Now Boucher picking up Josee Verner’s files. Boucher, of course, is unlikely to do much on the International Cooperation file. That would be the job of Ted Menzies, who is also a PS to Verner. But Menzies, a tremendously likeable farmer from southern Alberta, is functionally unilingual and, as a result, probably not the best guy to have on the Francophonie file. Boucher, a Quebec City-area MP is bilingual, as is Verner, who is also a Quebec City-area MP.