New MPs Open Up Harper’s Cabinet Options

Eve Adams (Courtesy Eve Adams, Conservative Party of Canada)

TORONTO—While the NDP have been mildly lampooned for having a caucus that includes a teenager and a barmaid/assistant manager who spent a good chunk of the election in Las Vegas, party leader Jack Layton argues that Parliament should represent a diversity of Canadians.

In a country as large and diverse as Canada, that can be a challenge, and one that every prime minister wrestles with as he selects the chosen few that will head up various departments and ministries.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has more depth on his bench to draw from this time around, including an Oxford educated diplomat and a superstar aboriginal leader who kept the Liberals from winning a clean sweep of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Although the PM isn’t expected to drastically overhaul his ministry, even filling the six posts left vacant after two MPs retired and four others lost their seats will shake things up.

While Harper rarely promotes rookies to the front lines, he’ll be carefully considering his options and future shuffles could see new faces brought forward. Although Harper already has some experienced players that could be due for a promotion, other factors play a role, including gender and the region MPs represent.

Among the Tories’ new representatives from the GTA, a key electoral battleground credited with providing the Tory majority, is Mark Adler, founder and CEO of the Economic Club of Canada, a group known for bringing high profile speakers including world leaders and a former U.S. president to luncheons with Canadian business and government leaders.

Adler’s previous jobs include a stint as director of Corporate Programs with the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and work as a trade representative for Ontario’s Industry ministry. He took the riding of York Centre from former NHL goaltender and star Liberal Ken Dryden.

Eve Adams has a name that will play well to those religious fundamentalists once rumoured to control the Conservative Party.

The photogenic newcomer from the GTA is actually returning to the House of Commons she once worked at as a page, fetching water and running errands for MPs in her youth.

Adams took Mississauga-Brampton South from Navdeep Bains, a well-spoken Liberal who joked that election campaigns were the most expensive diet plans ever created. Few expected him to lose.

Adams has a degree in psychology from the University of Western Ontario and worked as a government staffer at Queen’s Park. She headed up an accounting association and has been Mississauga city councillor since 2003.

Much has already been made of Chris Alexander, one of Canada’s youngest ever diplomats. The Oxford educated Toronto native was appointed Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan in 2003 and also worked as the Deputy Special Representative to the UN’s Secretary General in Afghanistan. Alexander scooped Ajax-Pickering from Mark Holland, long despised among Conservatives as the Liberals’ vocal Public Safety critic.

Speculation is ripe that Alexander is heading to cabinet, even possibly into Lawrence Cannon’s old job in Foreign Affairs, though that would be a plum posting for an untested rookie and more likely down the road rather than fresh out.

Dr. Kellie Leitch is another newcomer with some uber-relevant job experience. She took Simcoe-Grey from former Conservative-turned-Independent Helena Guergis. A paediatric orthopaedic surgeon, associate professor of surgery, and long-time Conservative Party activist, she treats children at clinics throughout central Ontario and at her practice at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).

Earlier this year, Leitch received the Order of Ontario for her advocacy of children’s health and was also named one of Canada’s “Top 40 Under 40” for her work in both medicine and business. She was a torch bearer for the 2010 games in recognition of those efforts.

Harper could make history in one of his appointments, should it happen. Besides Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who is spending Thursday in Greenland representing Canada at the Arctic Council, the Tories have landed another star aboriginal candidate in the form of Peter Penashue.

Penashue is the former head of the Innu Nation of Labrador and the only Conservative candidate elected from Newfoundland and Labrador, where the Liberals have their biggest splotch of red ridings in the entire country. Should he be selected as the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, as many hope, he would be the first aboriginal in that post.

Penashue brought the world’s eyes to the distressing state of Davis Inlet in the early 90s, where Innu teens were sniffing gas and six children huddled around an electric hot plate to stay warm died when the curtains caught fire and their home burned down.

He also helped settle a long-standing land claim and positioned the Innu to play a partnership role in the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project.

The Conservatives are also bringing some muscle to the bench, with two martial artists joining the blue team. Though neither looks like an immediate candidate for cabinet, they do add some punch.

Dan Albas won in Day’s old riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla which includes Penticton, B.C., and owns Kick City Martial Arts. He won Penticton’s “2005 Young Entrepreneur of the Year” award and a seat on Penticton’s city council in 2008. Albas said he was buoyed by the results and hopes to work on food safety issues.

The other new MP with a penchant for punches is the Yukon’s Ryan Leef. Leef—a former cop, hunting guide, and cage fighter—bumped widely popular Liberal MP Larry Bagnell from the seat. Bagnell was among Liberal MPs forced to reverse their stance against the long-gun registry when Ignatieff whipped his caucus to vote to uphold the legislation that is especially unpopular in the rustic northern territory.

Parliament is tentatively scheduled to resume May 30 and among Harper’s first jobs will be naming his cabinet—one of the most important jobs a PM is tasked with, said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in a recent teleconference.