Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau
In many ways, the composition of the new government is an indicator of how and in what vein the country's domestic and foreign policy will be built. This is especially important right now, given that the new government faces a gigantic task of correcting the global mistakes made by the previous government of Stephen Harper, which was in power for the last nine years. During its rule, the conservatives managed to radically change the landscape of Canada's domestic and foreign policy, and not for the better.
The situation in the economy is particularly difficult. By focusing on the development of the energy and raw materials sectors, Harper essentially conducted his policy to the detriment of the manufacturing sector, which is now reflected in weak growth rates – even despite the fact that the current situation for manufacturing companies is more than favorable. Partially, such an attitude toward the manufacturing sector also arose due to the confrontation between Harper's federal government and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the country's largest provinces, where the main production capacities are concentrated. It even bordered on a war that Harper declared on these two provinces.
As a result, due to economic problems, the Canadian dollar has lost some of its value, and now one US dollar buys 1.3 Canadian dollars. And this at a time when just a couple of years ago the Canadian and US dollars were at parity.
Also concerning is the fact that the outflow of investment capital from Canada is proceeding at the highest rate among all other developed countries. Moreover, what is unpleasant is that large Canadian companies are withdrawing capital from Canada because they do not see promising industries for investment within the country. Obviously, the new government will have to do a tremendous amount of work to restore investor confidence and help the manufacturing sector return to its former form.
The situation is similar in foreign policy, where Canada, due to the actions of Stephen Harper's government, lost its position as an arbitrator in finding solutions to complex international conflict situations. The conservatives were more inclined toward the role of hawks, seeing this as strengthening the country's authority on the international stage. However, the reality is that Canada's military and economic power is nowhere near comparable to the US and China, so Canada simply cannot play the role of arbiter of destinies on the planet. As a result, Stephen Harper reduced everything to imitation, while losing the position of international arbitrator that Canada had rightfully occupied for all previous decades.
Stephen Harper's domestic policy also drew much criticism, especially in the last years of his rule, when a number of draconian laws were passed. This even gave human rights activists reason to say that he was turning Canada into a police state.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the immigration system, which the conservatives essentially ruined. Currently, there are a large number of provincial programs that largely duplicate each other, they are constantly changing, and each has very small quotas, making getting through them a matter of luck.
At the federal level, the situation is even worse. In particular, the absolutely illogical Express Entry pre-selection system introduced in 2015 has now become a serious obstacle to immigration under programs for skilled workers. Specifically, as of now, the allocated quotas have not been filled even close – in the middle of the year, only 10% of those who applied were able to pass through the Express Entry sieve. Even if we extrapolate the situation and assume that 20-30% have been selected, it is still far from the planned figure.
Finally, today there is virtually no working federal-level program for investors and entrepreneurs. And this, besides problems for potential immigrants, also translates into losses of investments worth billions of dollars and a failure to create new businesses with additional jobs.
All this happened thanks to the "efforts" of former Minister of Citizenship and Immigration of Canada Jason Kenney, who may rightly go down in history as the worst head of Canada's immigration department.
In general, looking at the results of the previous government's activities, one gets the feeling that they did not think about the economy at all when making certain decisions, guided rather by a desire to satisfy their ego, and not thinking about the consequences. Now the liberals have to deal with this legacy.
Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau handed out ministerial portfolios to 15 women and 15 men, including an Indian woman, two refugees, and two people with disabilities.
Speaking of the new cabinet formed by Justin Trudeau, it looks quite reasonable, although the principle of "give each sister a earring" is evident.
On the one hand, all provinces are well represented. There are many representatives of visible minorities – that is, non-white population. Most cabinet members are newcomers who have not held important government posts, but who know well the situation in the field they are appointed to lead.
On the other hand, the province of Ontario received the largest representation in the government, taking key positions, which is quite reasonable. Trudeau also managed to avoid outright populism. For example, it was expected that almost half of the ministers would be chosen from women. In reality, that did not happen – his cabinet has 3 more women than Harper's did. That is a signal that ministers were chosen on professional qualities, not for populist reasons.
Also, many iconic figures with vast experience in politics and public service did not join the cabinet, replaced by fresh blood. This suggests that Justin Trudeau intends to seriously change how state policy was conducted before.
Among the key figures, the following ministers are worth noting.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headed by Stephane Dion, who was the leader of the Liberal Party in the late 2000s. Unfortunately, as a leader he did not distinguish himself at all. Being a professor of political science, he is a typical representative of the Canadian intelligentsia, and under him, Canada will clearly begin a return to former values in foreign policy.
The Minister of Defense is Harjit Sajjan, a career military officer who commanded a regiment and participated in operations in Bosnia and Afghanistan. He also worked for the Vancouver police, leading the organized crime unit.
The Minister of Finance is Bill Morneau. This is perhaps the key figure in the cabinet, and the speed at which Canada can recover from the economic knockout delivered by Stephen Harper's activities depends on his qualifications. Bill Morneau has a good economic education and experience in senior positions at large financial corporations. At least his background looks impressive, which gives hope.
Finally, the most interesting appointment is arguably the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (the ministry is now called Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship). This post was given to John McCallum, who has extensive experience as a minister in the governments of Chrétien and Martin. In particular, he was Minister of Defense and Minister of Veterans Affairs. He is perhaps the most experienced politician in Justin Trudeau's government. By education and work experience, he is an economist who worked as a professor at universities. For six years, he served as chief economist at the Royal Bank of Canada. This alone suggests a pragmatic approach on his part to business and skilled worker programs. At the very least, we can expect him to understand the importance of these categories of immigrants for Canada's economy and to shift the priority of immigration policy toward these categories.
Another small fact from his biography is that he is married to an ethnic Chinese woman, with whom he has three children. At the very least, he can be expected to understand the problems of immigrants and be more sympathetic toward them, unlike Jason Kenney.
It is worth recalling that during his election campaign, Stephen Harper effectively divided Canadians into two categories – new Canadians and so-called old stock Canadians – which provoked outrage. Indeed, it is in this attitude toward immigrants that we must seek the roots of why Jason Kenney's activities led to the paralysis of the entire immigration system. In this regard, John McCallum appears to be the complete opposite of his predecessors.
Nevertheless, these are only our assumptions for now. Time will tell how good a minister John McCallum will be and whether he will be able to quickly fix the immigration system. After all, when Jason Kenney was replaced by his party colleague Chris Alexander, great hopes were also placed on him; his track record was impressive, and he himself made a very pleasant impression. In practice, unfortunately, he turned out to be a completely colorless continuator of Jason Kenney's work, completely discrediting himself in the role of minister. So now the main thing is that McCallum does not repeat the fate of Chris Alexander.
In any case, the cabinet has been formed and is beginning its work, and major changes lie ahead. Let us hope for the best.