The Conservatives’ critic shuffle is a sign of maturity

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Shuffles of the opposition front bench – the roster of critics, or as the Conservatives prefer, shadow ministers, assigned to dog the government ministers for their respective portfolios – rarely excite much notice.

That has been especially true of the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre: partly because there are so many critics (83, in the current incarnation, including shadow associate ministers, whips, advisers, “coordinators” and the like, out of a caucus of 140), partly because the Conservatives are so far from power, partly because you could stick a gun to most people’s heads and they still couldn’t name more than two or three of them.

Whether that’s a testament to the lack of talent on the Conservative front bench, or the leader’s refusal to share the spotlight with them, who can say. What can be said is that this shuffle represents a marked change on both counts. This is a much-improved Conservative team, with substantial figures in key posts who can be an asset to Mr. Poilievre’s wobbly leadership, if he lets them.

Poilievre shuffling his front bench, placing MP Michael Chong in key finance role

The list starts with the most significant and surprising move, sending Michael Chong from Foreign Affairs to Finance. This is a major promotion. Foreign Affairs is a prestige post, but it doesn’t tend to put you at the centre of most domestic political debates. Finance obviously does.

Among other things, this may be a signal that the Conservative braintrust has finally got the message from the centre-right voters who deserted it en masse last year: fewer yahoos, more grownups. Mr. Chong is decent, affable, thoughtful – principled and idealistic, as in his youth, but tempered perhaps by an older man’s understanding of political reality.

Mr. Chong, recall, resigned from the Harper government in 2006 over the parliamentary resolution recognizing that “the Québécois” form a nation. His 2015 Reform Act, offering new powers to party caucuses bold enough to seize them, remains one of the few glimmers of light on the democratic-reform front.

He ran for party leader in 2017 on a carbon tax, of all things: surely the definition of political courage. Lately he was seen pointedly making a visit to democratic Taiwan, over Beijing’s objections. Indeed, he has been such an irritant to the dictatorship that he became the target of a Chinese intelligence operation.

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He is sometimes described as a Red Tory. He’s not: he is merely a nice Tory. Ideologically, he is largely a Blue Tory: strong on defence, the rights of Parliament, the importance of tradition, and free markets. That same leadership campaign platform that contained the carbon tax, had anyone stopped carping about it long enough to listen, also contained massive cuts in personal and corporate tax rates.

His appointment to the Finance role, then, goes a long way to closing the stature gap between the Conservative and Liberal front benches. Indeed, in the Finance portfolio, the stature gap now arguably favours the Tories.

Other notable appointments:

• Gérard Deltell, a strong parliamentary performer inexplicably languishing as critic for Revenue, has been promoted to shadow minister for Intergovernmental Affairs and Interprovincial Trade, a huge file putting him opposite the redoubtable Dominic LeBlanc.
• Shuvaloy Majumdar, an impressive foreign-affairs and national security scholar left out of previous shadow cabinets, now takes on responsibility for Canada-U.S. Relations. The portfolio as such does not exist at the ministerial level: it combines aspects of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
• Replacing Mr. Chong at Foreign Affairs is Eric Duncan, not known for his foreign-policy chops but regarded as a competent pragmatist, a good organizer, a skilled communicator and, oh by the way, the first openly gay Conservative MP. That, too, sends the right signals.
• Raquel Dancho, Shannon Stubbs, and Stephanie Kusie are tenacious veteran critics who have earned modest promotions, to Health, Infrastructure and International Trade: some of the most contentious current issues, and squarely within their respective wheelhouses. 
• Among the front-bench newcomers, Sandra Cobena has a strong background in banking, finance and the economy that makes her a good choice for Treasury Board. 
• There’s something for the party’s radicals, too, with Aaron Gunn in at Ethics and Accountability and Roman Baber given responsibility for Civil Liberties. Both are loose cannons, to be sure, but their hell-raising proclivities may be effective on issues that are emerging as liabilities for this government.
• Finally, some steady incumbents remain in key portfolios, notably James Bezan at Defence, Scott Aitchison at Housing, and Ellis Ross at Environment and Climate Change. 

I don’t want to read too much into one shuffle. There are still important questions of direction and tone to be addressed – to say nothing of personnel – before one can say the Conservatives have begun to turn things around. But this is encouraging.