Tag: citizenship and immigration

Final cabinet speculation

Mostly certain:
– Prime Minister Stephen Harper
– Flaherty to stay in Finance (confirmed by numerous people in the department)
– Baird moving (confirmed)
– Clement moving
– Guergis moving (family has flown in, and hair appointment booked early AM tomorrow apparently)
– Bernier not in cabinet
– Aglukkaq in cabinet
– Prentice staying in Industry (no indication of a move from bureaucrats or political staffers up until midnight)
– Lunn moving (family has flown in)
– Verner moving
– MacKay stays in defence
– a good number of Secretaries of State named

Responsibly speculative:
– Cannon in foreign affairs (heard this from a high level source on Tuesday night)
– Kenney at CIC
– Nicholson stays in Justice
– Strahl stays at INAC
– Clement in trade
– Baird in transport
– Verner to intergovernmental affairs
– Ambrose to HRSDC
– Shea or Duncan in Fisheries
– Raitt in cabinet
– James Moore promoted

Wildly and so irresponsibly speculative:
– Raitt to get NRCan (doubtful)
– Liberal crosses the floor and enters cabinet (sourced at a high level, but I don’t see it happening. Yet, a number of Liberals staffers have been confirming they’ve heard the same rumour for days)
– Rob Moore in cabinet

Jason Kenney may become the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Jason Kenney is being touted as a serious contender for a full cabinet portfolio as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.  Kenney, a workhorse of the Conservative government, would retain his duties in Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity but bring these under the umbrella of CIC.

Kenney’s duties since January of 2007 when he took on the Sec. State position have been to connect new Canadians, and the various communities they populate, with the government of Canada and unofficially advocate as a Conservative ambassador to these groups on behalf of the party.

The Conservative Party has had an active strategy of reaching out to these constituencies to break what has been seen as a lock on these groups by the Liberal Party since Trudeau.