Forming a cabinet will be the No. 1 job for Ford after his re-election for a second term. With higher PC MPP output, most of whom have at least four years in their belt at Queen’s Park, Ford has a wider range of options than it had in choosing its first closet in 2018. At the time, the only MPs with experience in the legislature were the PCs that had won their seats before Ford became leader – when the party was in opposition – making it a detour to rural Ontario. All but one of Ford’s first cabinet members were white and only seven were women. Ford reshuffled his cabinet one year before his first term, replacing ministers who had opposed his response to the pandemic. Now, with more MPs than any Progressive Conservative Prime Minister since the 1950s and a larger majority since his first term, political observers expect Ford to appoint a larger cabinet with a more balanced regional, national and gender representation. “I think you can definitely expect the prime minister to at least slightly expand the size of his cabinet,” said Karl Baldauf, vice president of the McMillan Vantage Policy Group, who served as chief of staff to then-Treasury Secretary Peter Bethlenfalvy. . during his first government term. Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford is pictured with his first cabinet member and Deputy Governor Elizabeth Dowdswell in June 2018. (Mark Blinch / The Canadian Press) Baldauf said one of Ford’s challenges is to ensure that all members of the wider PC team feel they are contributing to the government’s success. Andrew Brander, who served as a senior adviser to the Ford government and is now vice president of Crestview Strategy, says Ford will need to consider national diversity and regional representation to form its new cabinet. At the same time, Brader says that Ford’s election victory after a “Get It Done” promise indicates that he will want to continue from his first term. All 25 Ford cabinet ministers who applied for re-election on June 2 retained their seats. “I think the cabinet will largely reflect the previous cabinet,” Brader said in an interview. He added that Ford could bring in new faces by creating new portfolios that focus on department departments and signal government priorities. Ford has the potential to appoint a larger cabinet with potentially more than 30 members, given the strength of his majority and the fact that he spoke much less frequently in this election to ease the size and cost of government than the previous time. The most important hole Ford has to fill around the cabinet is his health minister, following Christine Elliott’s decision in March to leave politics. Sylvia Jones served on the cabinet as the attorney general for the Ford government during the COVID-19 pandemic and was the minister overseeing the distribution of vaccines in Ontario. She is a possible successor to Christine Elliott as Minister of Health. (Cole Burston / The Canadian Press) “The prime minister will need a strong performer, someone who can be fully trusted, someone who knows how to handle the spotlight,” Baldauf said. “It will be the biggest challenge for the prime minister and his transition team in the coming weeks.” Two names have emerged from sources likely to become the next Minister of Health: Sylvia Jones and Prabmeet Sarkaria, who have both taken on roles related to tackling the COVID-19 government’s pandemic. As attorney general, Jones became the minister responsible for circulating the vaccine, while Sarkaria, as head of the Treasury Department, oversaw the development of the latest reopening plan. Sources close to the government give Jones the lead. “The prime minister trusts her,” says one. Bethlenfalvy is expected to remain finance minister, in part because Ford fired his first two finance ministers, Vic Fedeli and Rod Phillips, before he could submit a second budget, and markets do not like instability in this portfolio. Many sources say Labor Secretary Monte McNaughton is in line for promotion after the spearhead of the government’s “Work for Workers” plan, which marked a change that, according to political strategists, helped computers regain previously held seats. NDP in industrial cities such as Windsor, Hamilton and Timmins. Ford has not set a date for the cabinet to be sworn in. Although there have been some reports that it will happen soon, government officials say it is not imminent and will probably not take place until the end of June. Discussions are still ongoing on the timetable for the removal of the legislature, the speech to the throne and the submission of the budget, said an official of the Prime Minister’s Office, adding that no decisions have been made.
