Amid slowing economy, McGuinty shuffles cabinet and creates new trade ministry

September 18, 2008

By Keith Leslie, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The impact of a slowing economy on jobs and prosperity in Ontario had Premier Dalton McGuinty shuffling his cabinet Thursday to create a new Ministry of International Trade and Investment and refocus the Ministry of Economic Development.

Windsor veteran Sandra Pupatello was to be named to the new ministry and will concentrate on getting companies around the world to invest in Ontario.

Former Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant takes over her Pupatello's old portfolio at Economic Development with a new focus on attracting more businesses investment from within Canada.

The new ministers were to be sworn in late Thursday at the legislature, which will resume sitting next Monday.

The opposition parties have been severely critical of the Liberal government for failing to stem the loss of more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs during the past few years, and accused McGuinty of failing to have a real economic plan to get the province back to prosperity.

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, said Thursday that businesses in Ontario "under invest" in their companies in part because of the province's high taxes.

"What we need to do is make sure Ontario is a place where businesses have the strongest possible encouragement to invest, and that has a lot to do with our marginal effective tax rates on investment, which are among the highest in the world," said Martin.

McGuinty made a few other key moves in his second cabinet shuffle since June, shifting former labour minister Brad Duguid into Bryant's old job at Aboriginal Affairs, although Bryant will retain his post as government house leader.

Toronto's Peter Fonseca goes from tourism to labour to replace Duguid, while North Bay's Monique Smith will take over tourism.

Smith's former job of revenue minister will return to the Ministry of Finance under Dwight Duncan.

During McGuinty's last shuffle, George Smitherman was promoted to head a combined new energy and infrastructure "super ministry" while David Caplan moved from Infrastructure to take over the health portfolio.

Smitherman was making his first major speech as Energy and Infrastructure Minister on Thursday to an energy conference in Niagara Falls.