New governments can’t help themselves.
In their search for ways – symbolic or otherwise – to signal welcome winds of change, they invariably restructure parts of the operation, relabel others and maybe add some new stuff.
And so it was Tuesday, when 37-year-old Iain Rankin was sworn in as the province’s 29th premier, along with the rest of his 16-member cabinet, by Lt.-Gov. Arthur LeBlanc.
Through the years, attempts at government restructuring, large and small, have had mixed results, although confusion at the outset has been a constant.
Departmental and agency name changes have become commonplace, often as a way for governments to make a statement without having to actually do much else.
Time will tell whether the name changes and new entities Rankin’s government unveiled Tuesday will bring consequential change or merely new letterhead.
But the new names, new offices and one new department represent Rankin’s best effort to refresh the seven-plus-year-old Liberal government, because he couldn’t accomplish that with his cabinet. It looks an awful lot like outgoing premier Stephen McNeil’s recent cabinets.
Rankin added three new faces. Ben Jessome took over responsibility for the civil service as minister of the Public Service Commission; Brendan McGuire is the new minister of municipal affairs and Keith Irving becomes minister for the newly named department of environment and climate change.
Rankin’s opponents for the Liberal leadership, Labi Kousoulis and Randy Delorey are back in cabinet, in finance and justice respectively, after a four-month hiatus for the leadership campaign. The other 10 ministers are holdovers from McNeil’s most recent cabinet.
The government’s news release accompanying the swearing-in said the new departmental name – it was just Environment until yesterday – recognizes the importance of climate change to government policy and decision-making.
While Team Rankin had the pen out changing departments’ names, they might have landed on Rankin’s former department, Lands and Forestry. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
There’s a department in need of a new name. It should revert to its once welcome moniker as the Department of Lands and Forests. Calling the department “forestry” sends the signal that the province’s forests are for that one purpose – forestry, to be cut down.
But I digress.
Perhaps cognizant of the turmoil that inevitably follows the realignment of departments, Rankin held restructuring to a minimum, creating one new Department of Infrastructure and Housing.
The new department includes the provincial housing agency and a good-sized chunk of the old department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR).
While one objective is obviously to raise the profile of housing in Rankin’s government, it’s somewhat incongruous marriage with big infrastructure projects leaves open the question as to which element of the new department will get more attention.
Much of Nova Scotia – and the Halifax region especially – is experiencing an affordable housing crisis that ought to be at the top of the new department’s agenda. But competing for space up there is the largest infrastructure initiative in the province’s history – namely the redevelopment of hospitals in Halifax and Cape Breton. The chances of Nova Scotians’ housing needs elbowing out the hospitals project for attention seem slim.
Rankin also created two new offices, one needed and one redundant.
The new Office of Equity and Anti-Racism is both welcome and required.
During his brief remarks at the swearing-in, Rankin said the long journey of dismantling racism in Nova Scotia is just beginning.
The fact is that racialized Nova Scotians generally and African-Nova Scotians in particular, have all but given up on the provincial Human Rights Commission’s efficacy in addressing inequality and racism, so the new office has potential to fill that essential role.
The Office of Mental Health and Addictions is a bit more perplexing. Mental health and addictions are already divisions in the Health Department and at Nova Scotia Health (the entity formerly known as the “authority”) so how, exactly, the creation of a new office in the Health Department will improve mental health and addiction services is a mystery, likely even to those who go to work in the field every day.
Removing infrastructure from TIR necessitated a change in that department’s name to Transportation and Active Transit and we’ll have to wait and see what that might mean.
The Business Department is no more, replaced by a department called Inclusive Economic Growth, which is a tougher nut to crack than taking care of business. Kousoulis takes on ministerial responsibility there along with his duties at finance.
Finally, the old Department of Immigration becomes the Department of Immigration and Population Growth, apparently just in case there was some confusion as to the purpose of attracting immigrants.
Swearing-in a new government is a day of ceremony, so symbolism is to be expected.
On its first day in office, symbolism was pretty much all we got from Nova Scotia’s new Rankin government. Substance to follow, we hope.
