Hidden message behind cabinet picks: Let's get ready to rumble
JOHN IBBITSON--Friday, February 9, 2001--Globe and Mail
With yesterday's aggressive cabinet shuffle, Mike Harris has emphatically signalled that the internal struggle between revolutionaries and pragmatists within his government has been won by the militants.
In other words, Guy Giorno is in charge. Mr. Giorno, chief of staff to the Premier, has risen in five years from a mid-level position as adviser to the Premier to the government's most powerful unelected voice.
Since his appointment as the No. 1 in the Premier's Office last August, the 36-year-old lawyer has reportedly been working at shaping and focusing a sorely needed agenda to carry the government through to the end of its second term. The Premier's cabinet choices suggest that agenda is in place and set for implementation.
In many ways, the people promoted and demoted in the shuffle are less important than those who stayed where they are.
Despite the continuing strife between the government and the teachers unions over the hours teachers must teach, Janet Ecker remains Education Minister. A shuffle by a moderate such as Elizabeth Witmer into the portfolio would have signalled that the government was ready to compromise. (The Premier employed exactly that strategy when he moved moderates into key portfolios in 1997.)
If compromise is not the future, and given that the status quo is unacceptable, only one alternative remains: confrontation. Brace yourselves.
Keeping Jim Wilson in Energy suggests a similar determination. Mr. Wilson has been struggling for four years to manage the deregulation and possible privatization of the state-owned Ontario Hydro. Replacing him would have signalled that the government, frightened by energy shortages in California and price spikes in Alberta, was ready to back off the controversial policy. His retention suggests that, at the least, the government remains committed to deregulation.
The two most important shuffles are Ms. Witmer to Environment and Tony Clement to Health. Ms. Witmer's reputation rests on her ability to manage enormously complex logistical challenges. In Health it was her job to implement the Health Services Restructuring Commission's recommendations for closing hospitals and opening new long-term care facilities.
What could she manage at Environment? How about the consolidation of the province's water authorities, the privatization of the Crown-owned Ontario Clean Water Agency, and the contracting out of water and sewer repair and maintenance to the private sector, as the government's ultimate response to the Walkerton disaster? The odds just improved.
Mr. Clement, on the other hand, is an effective communicator and a dedicated neoconservative. His last act as Municipal Affairs Minister, Wednesday, was to announce forthcoming legislation streamlining the building-permit process.
Perhaps the most important signal this week came from the Premier, Tuesday, when he warned that health-care spending was out of control and had to be reined in. Until now, the Tories have boasted of how much they were spending on health care. What is going on here? Is Ontario about to get its own version of Alberta's Bill 11, permitting private hospitals to offer medically necessary services?
And favoured-son Chris Hodgson's move to Municipal Affairs (despite rumours he was none too pleased to end up there) suggests the Premier is serious about compelling municipalities to integrate and reform their planning, services and infrastructure.
All of this could be but of the moment. Cautious heads could once again prevail, the Premier become once again distracted, Mr. Giorno become more interested in getting the government re-elected than in carrying on the legacy of the Common Sense Revolution.
But at this moment, at least, the word has gone out: Mike Harris leads a government militant. |
