Iain Rankin's aspiration to “write the next chapter” in the history of the province starts tomorrow with many of the same players who wrote the last one.
The cabinet that's sworn in Tuesday morning by Lt.-Gov. Arthur Leblanc will include more vaguely familiar names and semi-familiar faces from Stephen McNeil's cabinet than new blood soon-to-be-premier Rankin will elevate from the Liberal backbench.
That's as much a function of the numbers as anything else.
The Liberal caucus in the legislature is down to 26 members, a bare majority, 16 of whom are currently in McNeil's cabinet.
Rankin and his team obviously had to consider a multitude of variables and personalities while building his cabinet.
Key among those considerations is whether to include the eight Liberal MLAS — including six cabinet ministers — who won't be running in the next election, and whether to demote any of the remaining 10 cabinet ministers who, at this point, seem committed to reoffering.
The path of least resistance is for Rankin to merely to backfill the six spots “vacated” by the ministers, and the premier, who won't be on the ballot next time around.
Rankin himself would, of course, occupy one of those spots — the one at the top — and his Liberal leadership opponents, Labi Kousoulis and Randy Delorey, are certain cabinet picks in senior portfolios, possibly finance and health respectively.
The three remaining spots in cabinet — provided Rankin keeps his cabinet the same size as McNeil's — would almost certainly go to Brendan Maguire, Keith Irving and Ben Jessome, three Liberal backbenchers who supported Rankin's leadership bid.
The 10 McNeil cabinet ministers who, as of now, are reoffering would — and will — remain in Rankin's cabinet.
But don't expect it to be quite that simple or clean.
For starters, Rankin needs the continued service of at least one those ministers who isn't reoffering.
Geoff MacLellan is one of just two Liberal MLAS from Cape Breton — Derek Mombourquette is the other and will stay in cabinet — and, maybe more importantly, MacLellan is the Liberal House leader.
Going into the legislature complicated by the pandemic and with a slim majority, Rankin needs an experienced hand to guide the Liberal effort. MacLellan is that hand, and he will stay in cabinet and continue in the key role as House leader.
Word from within the Rankin camp is that the new premier and his team may have found some innovative ways to include more fresh faces in his government, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what those might be.
Ideally, Rankin would like his government to reflect both continuity and renewal.
They will embrace the best of the McNeil record — fiscal stability, a growing prepandemic economy, increased immigration and population growth — as a solid foundation for Rankin's ambitious agenda on climate change, social and economic justice, infrastructure renewal, a modernized health system and a greater emphasis on education, research and the province's universities as economic drivers.
But Rankin and company are looking down the barrel of some immediate and near-term deadlines, and realistically won't be able to make much tangible headway on those priorities before they need to seek a mandate from Nova Scotians.
The legislature is scheduled to resume March 9 — one day shy of a full year since it last sat — with a throne speech that provides Rankin's government with its first, best opportunity to lay out, in broad terms, its plans and priorities.
The budget that follows soon after will put some meat on the bare bones offered up in a throne speech, and it's there where Nova Scotians will discover which parts of his agenda Rankin will advance with concrete action.
Looming over everything are the pandemic and the harsh political reality of a narrow window of opportunity for Rankin to put his stamp on the government.
At the absolute outside, his government has 15 months before it must call a provincial election but, pandemic permitting, it will come well before the five-year term the Liberals won in 2017 expires in May 2022.
Tuesday, we'll see how well Rankin balances the old and the new in his cabinet. Much more will be revealed March 9 and after when his government faces the legislature and pushes ahead with those elements of his agenda that are possible given the constraints of time and money.
And, all the while, the political brain trust will be scouting for the best available opportunity to ask Nova Scotians for a third successive Liberal government.
