Last week, Alberta’s lieutenant governor approved a recommendation from Jason Kenney to update the acting minister assignments.
These assignments outline which ministers fill in should the main minister of a portfolio be unavailable.
For example, if the premier is unavailable, this is the following order of who would fill in for him during his absence, if needed:
- Minister of finance
- Minister of energy
- Minister of environment and parks
- Minister of health
- Minister of education
Most of the assignments remain as they were approved during the last recommendation, which was in March 2020.
The only change was the minister of justice’s acting minister assignments.
| March 2020 | August 2020 | |
| 1st acting minister | Advanced education | Jobs, economy, innovation |
| 2nd acting minister | Community and social services | Health |
| 3rd acting minister | Health | Energy |
| 4th acting minister | Municipal affairs | Advanced education |
| 5th acting minister | Energy | Community and social services |
For some reason, the minister of municipal affairs is no longer one of the acting ministers for the justice minister.
New to the list is the minister of jobs, economy, and innovation, who is actually first in line should the justice minister be unavailable. This kind of makes sense. The new minister of jobs, economy, and innovation is Doug Schweitzer, who until last week was the justice minister. It’d be easy for him to be a pinch hitter for that portfolio.
It’s not clear why municipal affairs was the minister chosen to be dropped from the list instead of any of the others.
Nor why advanced education went from first acting minister to fourth, for example? Or community and social services from 2nd to 5th? Or energy from 5th to 3rd? Why not just have everyone else was just dropped down a slot?
And no other ministry had their acting ministers adjusted.
Also, it’s kind of weird to do it 5 deep. In their first assignments, announced in 2019, they were only 2 deep. All the assignments during the NDP administration that I could find were also only 2 deep.
