Cabinet's revolving door: A concern for solving public policy problems

Manitoba is suffering from a revolving door of cabinet ministers, and the implications for publicpolicy are concerning.

In the middle of his term, Premier Greg Selinger opted to 'reset' his government through acabinet shuffle on October 18, 2013. That cabinet shuffle was expected as most governmentsattempt to revitalize themselves part-way through their mandate to combat mid-term blues andprepare for the next election.

What came next was unexpected. On November 3, 2014, five senior ministers dubbed the 'Gangof Five' resigned their positions amidst claims that their opinions were ignored by the premier.Premier Selinger swiftly replaced the Gang of Five with new ministers, some of whom lacksignificant experience despite having been assigned major portfolios.

Greg Dewar, for example, was first elected as MLA for Selkirk in 1990, but has never served incabinet and yet he was appointed as the powerful minister of finance. To be sure, Dewar servedas the legislative assistant for the minister of finance since November 2009, so he brings to thetable some experience, but none in cabinet.

Sharon Blady, similarly, had one year of cabinet experience as the minister of healthy living,Seniors and consumer affairs prior to her appointment of the very challenging and demanding department of health. To what degree these rookie ministers can handle such demanding postsremains to be seen.

Yesterday, Selinger announced another cabinet shuffle in large part to make room for the failedleadership contenders and reward loyal supporters. For the former, Selinger invited Steve Ashtonback to cabinet after placing third in the leadership convention. A similar offer was made toTheresa Oswald, who narrowly lost to Selinger, but she declined the position citing the need toconsider her future. For the latter, MLA MohinderSaran was promoted to cabinet and it is speculated thathis promotion may, in part, be a reward for delivering delegates to Selinger during the leadershipconvention.

In the space of 18 months October 18, 2013 to April 29, 2015 three cabinet shuffles haveoccurred. To be sure, there may be concerns about the quality of incoming ministers, particularlyrelated to their experience, but the other concern relates to a 'revolving door of cabinet' whereministers serve with short tenure and this leaves some departments vulnerable.

Let's look at the example of the Department of Housing and Community Development. Thisdepartment has an important mandate in promoting social inclusion by providing affordablehousing and building local communities. Prior to the October 18, 2015 shuffle, Kerri Irvin-Rosswas the cabinet minister assigned to this department. In the October 18, 2013 shuffle, PeterBjornson was named minister followed by Kerri Irvin-Ross (again) on November 3, 2014.

Inyesterday's announcement, Mohinder Saran was named minister.Short durations in leadership, quite simply, rarely support the development of large-scale ortransformative public policy change. This is understandable: it takes anywhere between six and 12months for a new minister to become acquainted with the various files and build trustingrelationships with stakeholders. Getting up to speed and understanding the complexity of publicpolicy problems takes time, so the ability to invest considerable energy and resources into large-scale public policy change is generally limited.

For anyone interested in how complex problems such as homelessness, poverty orenvironmental degradation are addressed, short tenures in ministerial leadership should be aconcern. What Manitoba needs is stability in ministerial leadership, and yet with the next electionset for a year from now, it is unlikely that this need will be met even if the NDP can win the nextelection.

Karine Levasseuris the associate professor at the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba.