The Seamless Transition

It's been a more than a day now since Harper revealed his new cabinet, which included David Emerson, an elected Liberal from Vancouver, and Michael Fortier, an unelected Conservative organizer from Montreal who is "temporarily" being appointed to the senate. (See my rants on the former, and the latter.) The official explanation seems to be that the appointments were made to ensure that Vancouver and Montreal - who, along with Toronto, elected no Conservative MPs - had some representation in the cabinet. What a bunch of crap.

First of all, if he was that concerned about Vancouver's representation, he could have appointed James Moore, a young talent whose riding (Port Moody - Westwood - Port Coquitlam) is not downtown, but is still in the Greater Vancouver Area. Second, physical presence at the cabinet table is not what is required in order to placate/woo the three metropolitan areas, especially if the electorate chose not to give you any representatives from there. A perfectly laudable method that could be used instead would be to act to address urban concerns. For example, Harper won praise from Toronto's mayor, David Miller, by appointing a respected and high-ranking Conservative MP, Lawrence Cannon, as Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

No, Harper has not done anything that is particularly out of the ordinary with the two surprise appointments, but that is why it is so galling. Canadians voted for change. Changeons pour vrai. Today's column from the Toronto Sun's Lorrie Goldstein asks, "This is a !!&?@? change?" So far, it looks like the answer is "Apparently not".