Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day shuffled his caucus “shadow cabinet” June 18, filling holes left by the expulsion from caucus of nine MPs who have called for the leader’ s resignation.
“This is an experienced, well-balanced and forward-looking team,” the embattled leader told a mid-day news conference.
The expelled MPs, who have called on Day to resign, were quick with their response.
“The issue is not the shadow cabinet, it’ s the leader,” they said in a statement issued in Ottawa. The group is made up of Chuck Strahl, Monte Solberg, Val Meredith, Jim Gouk, Jay Hill, Art Hanger, Grant McNally, Gary Lunn and Jim Pankiw.
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Day used his new critics’ list to reward some MPs who are loyalists, or at least have not publicly criticized the leader.
Brian Pallister, a Manitoba rookie MP and former provincial Conservative cabinet minister and federal Conservative party leadership candidate, received the largest boost by being named foreign affairs critic. Medicine Hat MP Solberg, the former critic, was kicked out of caucus June 18.
Rookie British Columbia MP James Moore, a former broadcaster,
becomes transport critic.
The agriculture critic team of Howard Hilstrom and Saskatchewan MPs David Anderson and Garry Breitkreuz remains unchanged. Anderson has been given responsibility for criticizing the Canadian Wheat Board.
Day’ s announcement came after weeks of crisis management within his tumultuous caucus, which began in April when two senior MPs were kicked out of caucus for challenging Day.
Then, the senior caucus officers from deputy leader Deborah Grey to House leader Strahl resigned their positions because of a lack of faith in Day.
Since then, it has been a weekly political circus of MPs walking close to the line of expulsion by criticizing Day but not calling for him to resign. Day loyalists have accused them of being responsible for the sharp drop in Alliance public support, from 25 percent last November to 11 percent now, behind the Conservatives.
Grey, the longest-serving Reform-Alliance MP, has come the closest to the line by publicly telling the leader “the gig is up.”
She was not expelled but Monday’ s critic assignments demoted her to associate health critic, monitoring Roy Romanow’ s commission into the future of health care.
Day said he hopes the new assignments will bring the party some peace as it looks for ways to focus on Liberal follies and uniting conservatives.
But with other MPs pondering their future and polls looking bleak, he also took nothing for granted.
“One of the joys of politics is that there are surprises daily,” he told reporters.
