Martin cabinet holds final meeting

By DARREN YOURK
Globe and Mail Update

Prime Minister Paul Martin's cabinet met for one last time in Ottawa on
Tuesday, with rumours swirling that a new Liberal cabinet will be chosen
within two weeks.

The lone piece of new business from the meeting was a new commitment to
send 100 police officers to Haiti. The officers, drawn primarily from the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, will be in Haiti for the next two years to
help the country's government transition. "Haiti is very, very
important to us," Mr. Martin told reporters. "We have a very
large Haitian population in Canada, and we do feel both a hemispheric and a
moral responsibility as a result of that."

Mr. Martin said Tuesday's first post-election meeting included a breakdown
of a Liberal election campaign that was bogged down by infighting and
questions over direction. The party dropped 33 seats from the 2000
election. "There's no doubt that Canadians did expect more from us and
they sent us that message," Mr. Martin said. "We intend to
deliver on our program which clearly set out that health care was the
number one priority, that we intend to proceed to deal with the provinces
on establishing a national child-care program."

Tuesday marked the final cabinet meeting for six ministers. Defence
Minister David Pratt, Heritage Minister Hlne Scherrer, Revenue Minister
Stan Keyes and Agriculture Minister Bob Speller are among those who lost
their seats in the June 28 vote. "Most of them were brand new
ministers and had made, in a very, very short period of time, a substantial
mark," Mr. Martin said. "At the same time, we've lost a number of
really important members of Parliament, and that's also very important. ...
These meetings are substantive, but they can also be emotional."

Mr. Keyes shrugged off disappointment over his loss but did say that one
common complaint he heard while going door to door in his Hamilton riding
was about the unpopular provincial budget brought down by Ontario's Liberal
Premier, Dalton McGuinty, just before the federal election call.

We're in a post-mortem period now where we can have a frank discussion on
all the different issues that contributed to wins and losses, Mr. Keyes
told reporters. It was a difficult campaign, because you don't win or lose
a campaign for any one particular issue. It's usually a series of issues
that compound themselves.

Sources have told The Globe and Mail that Mr. Martin will break from the
past and attempt to set down Liberal roots in British Columbia by
appointing a larger-than-usual contingent of ministers from that province.
He will likely name five ministers from B.C. - up from three now - when he
unveils his new cabinet within two weeks. Environment Minister David
Anderson, Public Works Minister Stephen Owen and Senate Leader Jack Austin
are the three current B.C. cabinet ministers. There has been some
speculation that Mr. Anderson, a Chrtien-era minister, would be dropped and
replaced by one of the new B.C. faces. Two of the Liberal dream team in the
province, former premier Ujjal Dosanjh and David Emerson, the former
president of lumber giant Canfor Corp., won their ridings and are
considered leading contenders for cabinet spots.

Mr. Martin is said to be still struggling with whether newly elected
Montreal MP and close associate Jean Lapierre will keep the Quebec
lieutenant's job when he joins the cabinet. Health Minister and Quebec MP
Pierre Pettigrew refused to answer reporters question on whether he thought
Mr. Lapierre should keep his job. "It is up to the Prime Minister to
make his appointments to the jobs he wants" he said. "Don't ask
me. It is the Prime Minister who makes those decisions."

Finance Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters that the federal government's
sale of Petro-Canada is proceeding and shares would be on the market within
"a very short time."

--- GoldED/W32 3.0.1