Cabinet

[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?