OK, reading what I already wrote,
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will appoint “new members of the Ministerial team” Wednesday morning, in a widely expected fine-tuning of his cabinet triggered by the resignation last month of former Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier.
The new ministers will be sworn in at Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General, at 11 a.m.
Christian Paradis, a rookie MP from Quebec who is the Secretary of State for Agriculture, is the likely candidate to get the job of International Trade minister, leaving the incumbent, David Emerson, free to focus on the Foreign Affairs portfolio, a job handed to him on an interim basis in the wake of Bernier's resignation…
and then reading what my friends and Campbell and Gloria wrote …
OTTAWA — Stephen Harper will place the recently troubled portfolio of Foreign Affairs in the safe hands of David Emerson, the Trade Minister who has been doing double-duty for a month, when he shuffles his cabinet Wednesday, sources say.
Conservative sources said the mini-shuffle will probably move only three or four ministers and revolve around filling the gap left on May 26 when Maxime Bernier was forced out as foreign affairs minister for leaving classified documents at the home of an ex-girlfriend with past biker ties.
But some movement is expected in the ranks of Quebec ministers as Mr. Harper seeks to maintain the province's weight at the cabinet table …
I'd now like to slightly modify my guess — and it surely is a guess for I haven't made any extra calls on this one, it being the hour when most normal folk here in Ottawa are asleep …
As I'd mentioned, briefing books are/were being prepared at HRDC, home to Ministers Solberg, Blackburn, and LeBreton. Campbell and Gloria talk about Quebec ministers being in play and they mention Sen. Michael Fortier.
That's got a good ring to it and could happen. But let me float another possibility involving Quebec ministers: Josée Verner to International Trade; Jean Pierre Blackburn to Heritage; Christian Paradis to Labour. That could work…
And now to bed …
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