Cabinet

[coppertop]

Just got the list of cabinet appointments. cowman, your man is the new Minister of intractructure and Transportation. Morton is the Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, he is the one likly responsible for the Land Use Policy Framework. George Groeneveld is the new Minister of Agricluture and Food.
The new position of Treasury Board President, goes to Lloyd Snellgrove.

Horner goes to Advanced Education and Technology, and Dave Hancock gets Health and Wellness. Oberg is Minister of Finance.

Danyluk is Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing which is a good fit for him.
Mel Knight gets Energy, Rob Renner gets Environment, Boutilier gets Intergovernmental Affairs, Melchin gets Seniors and Community support, Fred Lindsay gets Solicitor General, and Hec Goudreau gets Tourism and Parks, Recreation and Culture.

A whole bunch of new faces, combined with some of the old guard.

[cowman]

I think Ed is showing that he is a good "manager"...pretty well took care of all the regions and factions!
Am not happy that my own MLA got the nod for infrastructure...but maybe we'll get an airport out of it! Personally I think Ed made a mistake appointing this bum...but realize politics is politics!
So tell me more...about George Groenveld?

[coppertop]

MLA for Highwood


George Groeneveld was elected to his first term as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for the constituency of Highwood on November 22, 2004.

After graduating high school, Mr. Groeneveld completed a heavy duty mechanics course, strategic planning workshops as a director of the Alberta Wheat Pool, attended the Canadian International Grain Institute, and the management leadership program at the University of Calgary.

Throughout his career Mr. Groeneveld has had many accomplishments.

Co-owner of Bow River Farms Inc., Blackie, Alberta
Co-owner and director of Foothills Produce of Calgary (sold in 1988)
President of the Canadian Chianina Cattle Association (1980 to 1982)
Served as an international cattle judge in Australia (1983)
Delegate for the Alberta Wheat Pool (1992)
Regional director of Alberta Wheat Pool (1995)
Management Leadership Program, University of Calgary (1996)
First vice president of Agricore (1998)
Appointed by the federal government as a representative for Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance and Net Income Stabilization Account (1997 to 1999)
Accompanied Xcan Grain on trade missions to Hong Kong, China, Japan and Singapore
Member of Agri-Food Team Canada trade mission to Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
Mr. Groeneveld is an active community member.

Director, Blackie Co-op Association for 20 years
President of the Blackie and District Agricultural Society (1974-75)
Current steward and past elder of the Gladys United Church
Co-chaired the fund-raising committee of the Alberta Summer Games held in the Foothills community in 2004.
Mr. Groeneveld and his wife, Judith, have four children and in his spare time he enjoys golfing and watching his grandchildren play hockey.

February

[coppertop]

From the very start of the leadership race, Groeneveld supported Ed Stelmach. He was a real minority in that most of the other MLA's in the south supported Dinning, and of course Morton was a candidate himself. I think that George brings a lot to the porfolio in the way of experience in the agriculture industry and plain old fashioned common sense.

[Horse]

Looks like if anyone could say been there done that Mr Grouenveld is the man . Wonder if he can come down to earth to do something for the agg biz.Doubt it all to hell but Mr Stelmach will have to have some Ministers to shufle when things get tough|

[blackjack]

...coppertop...so far so good...i would have to admit stelmach is showing more guts than i expected...the cities are whining already that there is not enough rep...it looks to me he put some positive people in some important areas...now with the reduced cabinet i would also like to see a few less civil servants ...

[coppertop]

Ed is just showing the ability that those of us knew when he had we worked to get him elected as leader. He has told his cabinet that he wants them out from behind their desks and out talking to Albertans. He put some folks in cabinet that have proven loyalty to him in his leadership bid, and some that supported Dinning. Most of the new cabinet have never served in that role before, but have years of knowledge and experience either in business or municipal politics.

I think that Mel Knight will do an excellent job in Energy, and Dave Hancock will be a good Minister of Health. I know that the Premier wants to get all the players at the table and find out where the money is going in health care before they throw more at it or make any drastic changes. There is waste in the health care system and this is the first time I have heard anyone want to find out where.

The rural flavor of cabinet seems to have some major urban centers whining, but, I for one am glad to see it. Calgary and Edmonton are not the center of the universe, even though they seem to think they are. There are some good cabinet ministers from both cities, although Melchin sure took a nosedive in importance ! As for downsizing the civil service, I think that some Deputies were nearing retirement anyway so have chosen to do so.

One thing for sure, with Lloyd Snellgrove and Ray Danyluk in cabinet it is never going to be dull !!!!!

[cowman]

I guess the best thing was he got rid of Gary Marr...and Shirley!
Smart move to put Morton in the cabinet...better to keep your enemies close!
I suspect Calgary and Edmonton will not be happy...but where can they go? To the Liberals...maybe but I doubt it?

[wilagro]

I like the choices that were made in selecting the new cabinet.

Nice to see some new blood and nice to see that some of the old buzzards were defeathered.

[coppertop]

The city newspapers are full of WHINING this morning about not enough city MLA's in cabinet. Taft is saying that there aren't enough women and minorities....GEEZ !!
One thing that seems to be forgotten is that Ed worked side by side with previous cabinet members for years, and likely knew full well which ones would work well on his new TEAM.

I am pleased with the regional distribution in cabinet, at least we have an energy minister from an area that has major resource extraction vs from Calgary. Now, before anyone decides I am a bigot because I prefer a rural MLA in energy my reason for this is that it is high time the energy minister responsible for the oil and gas industry has had experience living and working in that industry and understands the rural areas where the resources come from.

When numerous MLA's were jumping on the Dinning bandwagon and dismissing Ed Stelmach as a country nobody, they maybe should have given him a second look. I think he will call an election early in 2008, and before that he and his team will get some things accomplished, review the royalty issue, make the delivery of health care more efficient, deal with the land use framework etc. When he goes to the people in an election, they will judge whether or not he has accomplished anything, and if he has it isn't going to matter where his cabinet members come from. My gut feeling is that regardless of the whining from cities;Taft and the NDP, this government under Ed's leadership is going to represent Albertans, and their issues will be dealt with, and within the next year our new Premier and his cabinet will look pretty good.

[wilagro]

coppertop: I concur...looking good.

[ivbinconned]

I will make a prediction...with in a year or atleast before the next election Ed will add more to his cabinet and they will be from the citys.

History shows... NEW premiers start out with a smaller team.

[coppertop]

He may very well do that, but his choices in Edmonton are certainly limited. He met with all the MLA's being considered for a cabinet position and asked for a committment to stay on through another election. Some, like Shirley McLellan likely declined because they are ready to step out of politics. The new MEGA ministry of Treasury etc. may very well need to be broken into a couple, but it is interesting that he separated out Rural Development from AG. Seniors Housing has been bounced between three ministrys over the past ten years, and it is finally back where it belongs in Municipal Affairs and Housing. When I chaired our local Seniors Foundation we changed ministrys three times over a six year period and with each change came different government support staff etc.
Some senior civil servants were shuffled across ministries within the past year or so, eg: John Knapp going from Ag. to Environment on a secondment. Those will likely be reviewed and if they are working well, will likely be made permanent.

[cowman]

I don't know if Stelmach made the right choices...like you said time will tell?
And I doubt very much the PC party will have much of a problem in the next election(2008)? There simply is no oppostion worth considering. The Liberals...well they are Liberals and I don't think Albertans will ever elect them...I think if they were ever going to get anywhere it should have been when Lawrence Decore was the leader...and he was a lot more of a conservative...than any PC!
The NDP...well I guess we won't even laugh about that one!
The Alliance is pretty well in freefall and doubtful they will ever amount to anything.
However...it is obvious a lot of Albertans are not happy campers with the same old "business as usual" PC approach? Maybe not a majority...but a strong minority? Maybe we need a "NEW" party...maybe like REFORM when it came out of nowhere to take the west away from the Mulrooney gang?
Now I know a lot of you hate the idea of the reform party...but the fact is they basically took over the federal Progrssive Conservative party...so the federal Conservative Party today is largely REFORM?
I sometimes wonder if Preston Manning was to take one more shot at it...if he could bring about another "revolution"? I doubt he would be interested, after all he is 62 and is very busy doing some really good work at the Manning institute. ...But it sure would make things interesting?