Journalists, that skeptical bunch, like to refer to government announcements sent after 4 pm as “taking out the garbage.”
That period in the afternoon, near dusk, is when a government or other institution likes to put out the press releases or announcements that don’t produce the most rosy headlines: the things that officials aren’t proud of and would rather not. get the same scrutiny, consideration, and reaction that ads posted earlier in the day will get. Most journalists don’t go out at 5 pm, but have family dinners and/or microwaves to get home like everyone else.
Typical garbage time releases include awkward policy changes or damning reports. However, cabinet changes? Very irregular that it would be placed at the time of the garbage.
A cabinet deck is normally a high profile and public issue (performed in the morning or at noon), with pomp and ceremony and the Lieutenant Governor presiding and meet-the-minister (and-their-agendas) interviews and press conferences.
The Jason Kenney government, as Alberta has seen so many times in the last three years, does things differently. On Tuesday at 4 pm, as the rubbish bin rang, Prime Minister Kenney announced via Press release that a new Alberta finance minister named Jason Nixon was sworn in (after briefly serving as acting minister in that role), along with four new cabinet members and a host of other changes.
Rumors began to filter out on Tuesday afternoon. There was no formal notice to journalists, and no possibility for reporters to question any of these new ministers about their intentions or their perceived abilities, or the prime minister himself about his strategy, motivations, or intentions behind his choices.
With Kenney’s more tame than usual change over email, photojournalists are unable to capture images and video footage of little-captured new Environment Minister Whitney Issik, Children’s Services Minister Matt Jones, or Minister of Infrastructure, Nick Milliken, whose roles and actions (or inactions) will inevitably be newsworthy in the coming months.
In this way, they are kind of faceless new faces on Kenney’s executive team. (Even later that day, the prime minister’s office issued photos of the sworn-in ministers by a government employee. Visual press releases.)
Minor Ministers
These are, of course, temporary promotions and job changes, enacted by a lame prime minister who will be replaced by a new leader of the United Conservative Party in October. The moves may be less part of a bold new agenda, more out of necessity, because Kenney’s finance, transport and children’s services ministers have resigned to pursue the UCP leadership.
A new prime minister may well rule out some or all of the new ministers, and most of their lives with the portfolio will be spent during a windy summer, with the prime minister looking at the exit sign and his government probably heading in the opposite direction. caregiver modeif it’s not already there.
Outgoing prime ministers before Kenney, such as Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach, handled similar changes with more transparency and accountability than cabinet reshuffles normally get. (The final Stelmach shake-up in 2011 and the Klein shake-up in 2006 were made by press release, but were issued earlier in the day and were followed by non-secret swearing-in ceremonies, and prime ministers or their ministers giving interviews about justification and plans).
It seems that Kenney did not want such scrutiny. It means that he and his new ministers will not receive questions like:
- With massive surpluses expected and a provincial fiscal update before the new prime minister arrives, how does Finance Minister Nixon intend to manage billions of dollars of additional resource royalties on behalf of Albertans?
- What is Children’s Services Minister Jones’ approach to furthering the federal-provincial child care agreement’s goal of $10 a day for child care?
- With new reports that the oil and gas sector is unlikely to be able to meet its 2030 carbon emissions targets without production cuts, how does Environment Minister Issik expect the industry to avoid such an economically damaging outcome?
- Why is newly appointed whip chief Brad Rutherford, hitherto an MP, suddenly made “minister without portfolio”? What does that mean, Mr. Kenney?
- With much of the UCP caucus based in rural Alberta, why are all the newly appointed cabinet ministers from Calgary or the Edmonton region, Mr. Kenney?
- Does this have anything to do with electoral calculus and the belief that politically vulnerable MLAs in areas the NDP has won before need the profile boost that the cabinet brings?
- Do any of these cabinet changes mean that the elected government of Alberta will carry out policies or plans differently, Mr. Kenney?
That’s probably enough questions for now. Look the hour.
Reference-www.cbc.ca