Rachel Notley to shuffle cabinet Thursday, just months into term

Premier Rachel Notley is making changes to her cabinetless than six months after forming the government raising eyebrows at the timing just days before the NDP's first provincial budget.

Notleyissued a newsreleaseWednesday evening announcing a swearing in ceremony at Government Housefor 10 a.m. Thursday.

CBC will livestream the ceremony and news conference to follow.

Notleyonlyannounced her slimmed-down cabinetin a public ceremony at the Alberta legislature in May.

Itis the smallestcabinetin Alberta indecades, with several of the12 ministersassignedmultipleportfolios.

• Rachel Notley sworn in as Alberta premier, reveals cabinet

Political scientist DuaneBrattsaidhe findsthe timing of the shufflecurious with the NDP's firstprovincialbudget set forTuesday.

"If they aren't adding new people to the cabinet and getting rid of some of those dual portfolios that makes sense, but if they're shifting people from one portfolio to another after four months, that doesn't make any sense to me.

"Was this a summer job for people?"

Bratt said Notleymay have been using the summer as a "four-month trial period" to see if any of herbackbencherscould be elevated tocabinet.

"But if people are switching portfolios or people are being punted from cabinet, that seems awful early especially since the (legislature)hasn't even met in the fall yet," he said.

Thecabinet isheavily weighted towards Edmonton which is represented withsix ministerscompared with three from Calgary, withthe remainingthree coming from the rest of the province.

Here is Notley's cabinet as it stands:

• Joe Ceci - Finance/Treasury Board president
• Sarah Hoffman - Health/Seniors.
• Kathleen Ganley - Justice/Aboriginal Affairs
• David Eggen - Education/Culture and Tourism
• Margaret Mccuaig-Boyd - Energy
• Shannon Phillips - Environment and Parks/Status of Women
• Brian Mason - Infrastructure/Transportation
• Deron Bilous - Municipal Affairs, Service Alberta
• Lori Sigurdson - Innovation and Advanced Education/Jobs, Skills, Training & Labour
• Rachel Notley -- International and Intergovernmental Affairs
• Oneil Carlier - Agriculture/Forestry
• Irfan Sabir - Human Services.