Critiquing the new Liberal critic line-up

Busyness with other pursuits, as well as the day job, has slowed my blogging of late but with the Parliamentary circus now back under the big top I do want to try to do a little catching-up, beginning with the new Liberal critic lineup, Michael Ignatieff edition that was unveiled last week.

On the positive side, good to see Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc in the roles they wanted; clearly the silly rumours that the two leadership rivals would be sidelined were merely a figment of someone’s overactive imagination. Looking at the other choices, John McCallum is the most knowledgeable choice for finance, if not overly charismatic. Marc Garneau is interesting in Industry, Science & Technology and I like David McGuinty on the environmental file.

I also liked the idea of a leaner, meaner line-up. I wasn’t a fan of Stephane Dion’s give a job to everyone in caucus approach, although I fully understand the motivation and necessity behind it. But while a leaner line-up by necessity means leaving some people out, I do question both some of the people left out, and some of those left in.

Starting with the latter, Joe Volpe? Really? With all the talent, veteran and fresh, in the GTA he gets a spot? Why not Bonnie Crombie, Rob Oliphant or Navdeep Bains?

And like a bad penny, Denis Coderre is back as defence critic. I’m not at all happy about that, for reasons articulated previously. If Michael feels the need to reward loyalty, fine, I can respect that. But Coderre has been an embarrassment in defence; give him any other portfolio. Perhaps this was his price for deigning to serve his party as Quebec lieutenant.

Then there are those who have been left out, such as Ujjal Dosanjh, Irwin Cottler, Justin Trudeau and, most glaringly, Stephane Dion. All I can say is I sincerely hope their exclusion was by their choice, and that they were offered positions. Because all of them should have been in there. Perhaps they don’t plan to run again, as has been speculated, with the exception, of course of Trudeau, who perhaps wants to begin his career with a little less profile. I’d still have pushed Dosanjh, Cottler and Dion to serve, however.

And looking at BC, if I was picking two MPs from the province for critic spots, one of them would have gone to Joyce Murray.

So, mixed thoughts, but we’ll get a chance starting tomorrow to see how the new line-up performs. How long we’ll get to watch them, well, that remains to be seen.

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