I suppose I should comment on the new Harper Cabinet that was sworn in today. My first impressions are this:

The good points of this shuffle - more women in Cabinet. As an aside, you kind of had the feeling that Lisa Raitt would get rewarded by Harper for removing the thorn in his side Garth Turner. Besides, I’m sure she made it clear she wasn’t getting into politics to be a backbencher, after being the former head of the Toronto Port Authority. More good points - Baird out of the Environment slot, and Clement out of Health.

The bad points are Flaherty staying Finance Minister, Gerry Ritz staying Agriculture after his stupid remarks, and Jason Kenney, never one to pass up a good smear job, being in Immigration.

The amusing points: Stephen Taylor (or his Conservative source that often feeds him their spin) being wrong that a Liberal from Quebec would cross the floor to join Cabinet, be that Irwin Cotler or someone else. Either Stephen and/or his source was trying to create mischief in Liberal-land, or else some folks up in Cons HQ were being overly optimistic of their PM’s power to persuade someone to cross the floor.

All in all, a reshuffle with a few new faces. I expect more of the same from this bunch which means parroting Harper and the PMO talking points. I’d hope Harper would let his ministers have more freedom to actually display an independent thought or 2, but don’t be surprised if nothing changes...