Editorial: Trudeau’s shuffle a nod to service – The Chronicle Herald

August 30, 2017

Monday’s federal cabinet shuffle started out from a modest enough need and response. Public Works Minister Judy Foote was retiring. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needed a new representative from Newfoundland and Labrador. He chose his friend Seamus O’Regan, a former TV and radio host, who became the new minister of Veterans Affairs.

But Mr. Trudeau stamped the shuffle with a higher, even historic, purpose by implementing a key recommendation of the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. He began dismantling the paternalistic Department of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development (INAC) by dividing it in two, as the Royal Commission advised.

One new ministry, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, is being retained by INAC minister Dr. Carolyn Bennett. She will focus on reworking relations with First Nations and negotiating changes to implement self-government. This will involve agreements on land settlements, resource rights and treaties for First Nations that don’t have them. It means scrapping the Indian Act and its control over aboriginal people. This will likely be a long-haul process of creating a fairer and better balance of government levels in Canada.