A shuffle of little consequence

By now, you’ve all heard that the news of the day was that wee little cabinet shuffle. Keeping the cabinet large in a day of fiscal austerity, and all of that. And while the CBC’s environment reporter offers environment minister Peter Kent some notes on his file, I’m sure he won’t need them, as his job will simply be to recite the appropriate PMO talking points – something Kent should be used to, given his history as a broadcaster, although this time he won’t have the benefit of a teleprompter.

Documents have revealed that the government made a deliberate decision to keep quiet in Canada when it came to the issue of closing all those embassies and foreign missions last year. Apparently, they were afraid of negative reaction in the media, not like they had something to hide.

In case you were wondering, NDP MP Peter Julian will not be running for the leadership of the BC NDP party.

There are fewer journalists using Access to Information requests – but this is likely because it takes four years to get heavily redacted documents rather than useful information.

Over in the UK, they’re looking at rewriting the 1701 Act of Settlement to ensure that women and Catholics are no longer discriminated against in the line of succession for the throne (though the issue of Catholics may be a bit trickier, because the Queen is also the titular head of the Church of England).

Here’s an analysis of last year’s question periods.

And here’s one political cartoonist’s take on the cabinet shuffle.

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