With this week’s cabinet shuffle, Premier Kenney is going to great lengths to put his selfish short-term political interests first..The premier increased the total size of Cabinet by 15%, up to 26 ministers and associate ministers. If you include parliamentary secretaries and other non-cabinet officers, the total number of the premier’s direct appointments now accounts for 50% of the UCP caucus..It’s abundantly clear this shuffle has nothing to do with strengthening our province or helping Albertans. It was a crass attempt to buy the loyalty of disheartened and frustrated MLAs. .It is also reminiscent of the tactics of another deeply unpopular premier from Alberta’s past. As Premier Alison Redford’s administration slipped into scandal, she also handed out 30 appointments, representing half her caucus. While most Albertans take Redford’s failed leadership as a cautionary tale, Premier Kenney seems take it as an instructional manual..When you take a closer look at Premier Kenney’s new cabinet, things only get worse. Here are a few issues that stand out:.No change at the top.While cabinet shuffles are typically used to reset unpopular government policies, Premier Kenney obviously believes his policies are fine, and has made to no changes at the top of his cabinet. .Notably, Premier Kenney remains his own minister of intergovernmental relations. Since taking on this post in April of 2019, the premier has achieved next to nothing on this file. He has outright failed to influence federal policy on the carbon tax, the tanker ban bill C-48, or Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill. The federal government has not offered to address Alberta’s concerns on Equalization, and its minor tinkering with the Fiscal Stabilization program is little more than an insult..To this day, federal government repeatedly meddles in provincial jurisdiction with regard to resource development, and when the Keystone XL pipeline was cancelled, the premier couldn’t get the prime minister to lift a finger. No minister in this government has a worse record than the intergovernmental relations minister, and he should be replaced..No regional balance.Of the 26 people with seats at the cabinet table, 17 are from Calgary, making up 65% of the total..Of Alberta’s 41 rural constituencies, only eight (less than 20%) are represented at the cabinet table. With the departure of MLA Grant Hunter from cabinet, there is now effectively no representation at the table for Albertans from the rural south. In fact, there isn’t a single MLA in cabinet south of Calgary’s city limits..If you want to be in Jason Kenney’s cabinet, the obvious first step should be winning a seat in Calgary. Of 23 Calgary ridings won by the UCP, 17 (74%) are represented in cabinet..Wildrose purge.Of the 13 former-Wildrose MLAs elected under the UCP banner in 2019 (each with a minimum of four years’ experience), there are only three in cabinet. Two former Wildrosers (Hunter and Aheer) were expelled from Cabinet, and two others (Loewen and Barnes) have been expelled from caucus altogether. .No accountability.One of the biggest political scandals of the year (the Sky Palace patio party) featured several senior ministers including the premier himself violating their own health restrictions. Earlier in the year, the premier threatened any restriction violators with expulsion from the UCP caucus. In January, MLAs who did not break health restrictions were all punished. However, none of the Sky Palace ministers were demoted in this cabinet shuffle. Meanwhile, the lone minister who dared to question the premier’s claims that he followed the rules (which he later recanted) was dismissed from cabinet..The bottom line is it’s hard to take this premier seriously when he talks about finding efficiencies or improving government accountability. With this shuffle, Kenney has increased the size of government while forcing a chosen few to pay a political price for his own failures. That fits a pattern of behaviour that Albertans have come to expect from a premier more concerned with his own scandals than Albertans’ interests..Guest Column from Drew Barnes and Todd Loewen..,Drew Barnes is the Independent MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat,.Todd Loewen is the Independent MLA for Central Peace-Notley
