Writing in the National Post, reporters Gordon Isfeld and Claudia Cattaneo assess the appointment of Joe Oliver to the position of Canada’s Finance Minister, vacated this week by Jim Flaherty.
They write that “despite his proven competence with the Natural Resources file, Mr. Oliver, 73, is not likely to remain at his new post over the long haul. Perhaps, not much past the 2015 federal vote” and so the appointment can be viewed as a “short-term fix”.
They quote Brian Lee Crowley, MLI’s Managing Director, saying that by “appointing someone who’s in his early 70s, the prime minister avoided choosing from amongst his potential successors, who are of a younger generation, and put that decision off until after the next election”.
Crowley continued, “Assuming that the government is re-elected, the prime minister would almost certainly regard that as an opportunity to … see what talent he’s got to work with … I’m sure he [Mr. Harper] will want to restructure his cabinet at that point.”
