When Alison Redford announced her new cabinet last week she was flanked for the photo shoot by a number of newcomers in the background and front and centre by long-time ministers Doug Horner, Ted Morton and Dave Hancock.
It was an interesting contrast, the old in the background and the new up front with the first female premier in Alberta history.
The initial reaction to the new cabinet from the opposition parties was, naturally, mostly negative because of the looming presence of the old guard. Redford had campaigned on a generational change and hadn't really delivered, the opposition claimed, because she kept so many former ministers.
In her defence it is a move she had to make. To jettison even more of the old guard could have put her in an extremely difficult and vulnerable position in her own caucus. As an unelected premier she will need all the support she can garner to push through her agenda.
The good news is she booted out of cabinet Gene Zwozdesky, Lindsay Blackett, Iris Evans, and Hector Goudreau, all of whom have been involved in controversial decisions in the past.
What is worrisome is the appointment of Ron Liepert to finance and Ted Morton to energy. Both men have been lightning rods for controversy in whatever portfolios they have had in the past and now they control two of the most important departments in determining Alberta's future.
Liepert, argue the opposition, will lead Alberta back into huge deficits and Morton is too cosy with oil companies to ensure Alberta gets it due share of revenues. That remains to be seen of course and will be one of Redford's ongoing challenges, to keep both men in line with her philosophy.
The new faces include five rookie MLAs who were elected in 2008 and haven't yet been tainted by the taste of political power: Manmeet Bhuller (at 31 the youngest MLA), Fred Horne, Evan Berger, Jeff Johnson and Cal Dallas.
The cabinet includes Doug Horner, MLA for Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert (deputy premier and president of the treasury board) and Johnson, the MLA for Athabasca-Redwater (infrastructure).
It will be interesting to see what benefits those two can bring to the local constituencies.
What is encouraging about the cabinet appointments is what Redford called a mixture of parents of young children, grandparents and people from all walks of life.
“We are the people who are living in this province and I think those are the people who Albertans want,” she said.
True enough. But every Conservative cabinet in the 40-year PC reign has been a similar mixture and somehow, once in power, too many of these average Albertans forget they are in the legislature for the benefit of Albertans, not for their own personal agendas.
Wildrose finance critic Rob Anderson said the new cabinet has too many leftovers for Redford to be able to make any meaningful changes.
Maybe so, maybe not. She did restore the $107 million in education funding, as promised. But that was a freebie and every rookie gets one of those.
Her party will give her plenty of leeway while she settles into office, likely going along with her ideas, even when they don't necessarily agree, as long they don't significantly impact their own re-election chances.
But wait until the major decisions come. Then we'll find out just how much power she has and how much support she will have attracted from the old school MLAs who have been settled in their seats for so long that each of them thinks he, or she, has a lifetime home.
- St. Albert Gazette, a Great West newspaper
