Looking good, Canada.
Canada’s new prime minister Justin Trudeau has named his new cabinet, which is the first in the country’s history to have equal numbers of men and women — it’s also smaller, younger and more ethnically diverse.
“It’s an incredible pleasure for me to be before you here today to present to Canada a cabinet that looks like Canada,” he said told reporters soon after being sworn in.
Asked why he felt it was necessary to have gender parity in the top echelon of government, Mr Trudeau said simply: “Because it is 2015.”
The majority of the Liberal cabinet are under 50 and it includes a mix of immigrants, tw0 aboriginal members, three Sikhs and a quadriplegic.
To be honest, something about having such a youthful, representative government feels a little odd to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Perhaps it’s because our own cabinet looks like this:
However that’s a vast improvement on the last – which is a good thing.
At 43, Trudeau is the second youngest prime minister in the country’s history and a proud feminist.
He has promised that his government will be more transparent and consultative than the previous one and has already announced plans for a more equitable taxation system.
The incoming female ministers include former journalist Chrystia Freeland, who will be in charge of international trade and Maryam Monsef, who fled Afghanistan as a refugee 20 years ago, overseeing democratic reform.
The former party leader Stéphane Dion has been given the foreign affairs portfolio.
So far, so great.
Top Comments
I wonder if the cabinet was selected based on individual merit - or based on filling quotas.
Before selecting the individuals - if they had the goal of forming the cabinet as 50% males, 50% females - it automatically removes the authenticity in the process of choosing a cabinet based on individual merit, experience, and qualifications etc, because regardless, there is that pre-specified quota which somewhat disregards those things.
Of course - if the cabinet was selected based on individual merit and at the same time, managed to achieve EXACT 50/50 split among female and males - well then that's great.
Let's just hope for Canadas sake that everyone got their job based on performance and not gender or race.
Yeah, like our current cabinet or the previous one was 100% made up of people who were there based on performance and not gender or race!
The new minister for science is a female scientist who sat on a Nobel prize winning panel, and the new minister for health is a female doctor with three decades of experience in her field. Not saying they will be perfect but it looks like some thought has been put into these portfolios.
That appears to be the case. Looking through the background of cabinet ministers, they all have real life experience in their particular portfolio. For example, their new Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, was a commander in the Canadian Armed Forces whilst serving three deployments in Afghanistan. He is well decorated with numerous medals and prior to being elected, he worked as a police detective for eleven years.
In contrast, we've had three Defence Ministers in three years, with the chaos of the new submarine contracts being used as a political tool to save Pyne's seat in SA.
Babe, middle class white men are just intrinsically smarter and better than everyone else, so of course they got it based solely on performance, with no other factors at play. Duh!