The return of Steve Ashton to the provincial cabinet Nov. 3 as infrastructure and transportation minister after a two-month hiatus to unsuccessfully run for the NDP leadership and premier's chair comes as no surprise but is nevertheless welcome news for Northern Manitoba.
Despite telling the Winnipeg Free Press, in the immediate aftermath of his loss to Greg Selinger, that when he next went to work at the legislature it would be as the MLA for Thompson - and to a basement office ("Right now I'm a mail slot at the legislature," Ashton said shortly after the votes were counted. "Right now the leadership's done. I'm going to go have a few beers. Well, maybe more than few beers. And then Monday morning I'll be back at work, probably cleaning out my mail slot") there was never any doubt he would be offered a cabinet seat again.
Andrew Swan, named minister of justice and attorney general last week in the cabinet shuffle, explained Sept. 27 after he dropped out of the leadership race that "the assurances have actually been informal between all three of us," Swan said. "Between Steve Ashton and Greg Selinger and myself, we've made it clear among each other that whatever happened in this, the other two would continue to be an important part of this government."
While Swan didn't directly use the word cabinet, it's reasonable to infer he didn't mean that him and Ashton were destined to be an important part of the government sitting way back yonder on the government backbenches.
Cabinet making in politics is an intricate exercise in mixing and matching, balancing off all kinds of competing interests, including geographical, with the available talent. In Northern Manitoba, the NDP have Ashton and Rupertsland riding's Eric Robinson, named minister of aboriginal and Northern affairs in the shuffle, to look to.
After any cabinet shuffle, the media quickly follows with their own analysis of who's up and who's down; who won and who lost, and who's in and who's out. In the case of last week's cabinet shuffle, no one is out. In fact, the size of the cabinet has increased from 18 to 19. With a 34-member caucus, NDP MLAs have better than a one-in-two chance right now of being in the cabinet.
The Winnipeg Free Press in their next-day analysis picked Ashton, former minister of intergovernmental affairs and again the minister responsible for the Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization (EMO), as one of the three big losers in the cabinet shuffle, along with Stan Struthers, former minister of conservation, now minister of agriculture, food and rural initiatives, and Jim Rondeau, former minister of science, technology, energy and mines, now minister of healthy living, citizenship and youth. "Falling stock," is how the paper referred to Ashton, Struthers and Rondeau.
"Ashton was intergovernmental affairs minister, but no more," the Free Press opined. "He now heads up infrastructure and transportation, a job he first held almost a decade ago. Ashton is also still responsible for emergency measures, dealing with floods and forest fires. For Ashton, the man who wanted to be premier, it kind of has that been there, done that kind of feeling."
All true enough. When Gary Doer became premier in October 1999, Ashton was appointed a decade ago as minister of highways and government services (the department was renamed in January 2001 as transportation and government services) and he held the post until he was shuffled in September 2002 to conservation - and so on.
Still, Ashton's pithy response might well be, who cares? Same pay. A cabinet post is a cabinet post even if one of the knocks against Ashton during the premier's race (aside from not being a "team player") was that he had never held a senior cabinet post such as finance, health or justice.
But almost six years after leaving transportation, Ashton recalled in a conversation how much satisfaction he had as minister getting to re-jig the Official Highway Map of Manitoba to better reflect Manitoba "North of 53," pointing to that interesting mix of policy wonk (he knows his facts and then some) and proud Northerner that he is.
Ashton has written more than once for us about the "need to accelerate our efforts to expand all-weather road access" and in a column Aug. 24, 2007 wrote, "There are 50 communities covered by the Northern Affairs Act" and "14 communities for example do not have all-weather road access and there are still residents without sewer and water."
Does he sound like maybe the right guy for infrastructure and transportation?
In his Nov. 6 "MLA Report" column for the Nickel Belt News, Ashton writes, "As minister I will be directly responsible for the construction of the new UCN campus in Thompson and the upgraded campus in The Pas. I will be making sure we move ahead on what will be one of the largest provincial investments ever in Thompson and the North. I will be responsible for continuing to invest in our Northern road network ... I will be working on both rail and bus service issues that are critical to Northerners. I will be working to promote the Port of Churchill ... I will be working to enhance our airports in the North. I will be working to ensure we receive our fair share of infrastructure funding for everything from sewer and water to recreation."
It may not be the most glamorous portfolio in the Selinger cabinet, but we think Steve Ashton will be a good fit back in his old bailiwick at infrastructure and transportation. Mayor Tim Johnston probably has his first infrastructure funding request ready to personally hand to Ashton next time he runs into him at Safeway. Welcome back, Steve.
