Published on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010 7:39PM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010 8:31PM EST
Globe and Mail
For Ontario's aboriginals, it was too good to be true.
Not only did they finally have a provincial minister dedicated solely to their concerns, they had a provincial minister truly engaged in their concerns – one who wanted not just to blame the federal government for natives' problems, but to have the province take a leading role in addressing the crippling poverty and drop-out rates and other social ills plaguing its native population.
Then the inevitable happened. Brad Duguid's political masters decided someone with his talents was wasted in such a marginal provincial ministry. And as they handed him a huge promotion, moving him to Energy and Infrastructure in this week's cabinet shuffle, they sent a clear message to natives about where they stand at Queen's Park.
The answer, to put it bluntly, is not very high at all.
Governments have an unfortunate tendency to conclude that ministers who prove themselves competent at aboriginal affairs are wasted there. (Much the same thing happened during the federal Conservatives' first term, when it took only a year-and-a-half for Jim Prentice to be bumped up to Industry.) But usually, they at least make a passing effort to replace them adequately.
Not so Dalton McGuinty. Instead, he tacked Mr. Duguid's responsibilities onto those of Attorney-General Chris Bentley. As a result, Ontario is back to being the only province west of Atlantic Canada not to have a minister solely responsible for aboriginal affairs (or, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, for aboriginal and northern affairs).
In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Bentley gamely enthused about “picking up where Brad left off.” From his new second office, he pointed out that “we have a separate ministry, separate deputy minister, separate minister's staff – none of that has changed.”
But what has changed is that there's no longer a full-time boss. And with official aboriginal policy mostly the federal government's domain, the provincial ministry is largely what the boss makes of it.
Mr. Bentley might carry forward the initiatives of his predecessor. (Mr. Duguid took pride in launching programs that would continue regardless of his own future, notably a forthcoming public-private partnership to reach out to on-reserve youth through sports.) But it's hard to imagine that while also doing his day job, in which he'll be contending with everything from an ongoing battle over legal aid to the upcoming trial of former cabinet colleague Michael Bryant, Mr. Bentley will have much time to show initiative of his own.
A nudge-wink aspect of this week's shuffle was that aboriginal affairs might well get its own minister again later this year; it may be a good fit for Glen Murray or Bob Chiarelli, a pair of high-profile Liberals running in by-elections. But considering that aboriginal leaders are already lining up to express their dismay, a lot of goodwill might have been lost by then.
Mr. McGuinty's 2007 creation of a stand-alone aboriginal affairs ministry, a key recommendation into the public inquiry into the Ipperwash stand-off that killed protester Dudley George, was supposed to signal a new prioritization of native policy. But it can hardly be considered much of a priority once the Premier has demonstrated that he considers the ministry's top position disposable.
Recreating that position for Mr. Murray or Mr. Chiarelli, until something better came along for them, would be unlikely to change that impression.