Stephen McNeil shuffles cabinet, but vows not to change course

Premier Stephen McNeil has decided a near clean sweep is in order to start his second mandate.

He shuffled just about every cabinet job in government Thursday, handing key portfolios to Karen Casey, Zach Churchill and Randy Delorey.

Casey takes over at Finance and will be deputy premier, Delorey moves from Finance to Health, and Churchill takes over where Casey left off at Education.

Other important jobs were handed to Kelly Regan, who leaves Labour and Advanced Education to head up Community Services, and former RCMP officer Mark Furey, who becomes minister of Justice.

McNeil is also bringing fresh blood into his cabinet by naming Patricia Arab as minister of Internal Services, Iain Rankin as minister of Environment and former Cape Breton Regional Municipality councillor Derek Mombourquette as minister of Municipal Affairs.

'Now is not the time to change course'

At a ceremony attended by hundreds of Liberal Party supporters, family and friends, the premier praised his caucus colleagues for agreeing to take on new responsibilities.

"Each member represents our geography, our diversity and our love of this province," he said in a prepared speech following the official swearing-in ceremony.

"And I have so much confidence in you and the members of our caucus that we continue to work with hardworking Nova Scotians to make this province all it can be."

He also echoed a well-worn election campaign theme which may be intended as a signal despite the change in ministersthat his government intendsto maintain the direction set during itsfirst mandate.

"Now is not the time to change course."

Health and education

Delorey, the newly appointed health minister,suggested changes were in order in his department, given the furore raised in some communitiesover a longstandinglack of medical resources.

"We have heard loud and clear about the need to do better in the area of primary care in particular, the area of mental health, and those are areas that we're certainly committedto working on," he said.

• 'Hemorrhaging' of doctors from Cape Breton must stop, physicians warn

• Lack of health-care resources in Digby 'deeply unfair'

Churchill, the new education minister, talked about the need to do "repair work" when it comes to the relationship between the governing Liberals and teachers.

"They need to know that government cares about what their concerns are and that we're going to keep moving on them," he said. "And I think at the end of the day if we can all work together we're going to have a better system."

Have to say no sometimes

But Churchill made no pledge to change or withdraw the contract the governing Liberals imposed on teachers this past winter.

"Listen, we had tough labournegotiations, there's no question about that," he said. "That was for good reason in my opinion. Because we have to, as a government, say no sometimes and that leads to tensions but its been for a greater good."

McNeil has made Furey his government'sminister of Labour Relations, a new department in charge of reaching collective agreements with public-sector workers. Thousands of civil servants, nurses and other health staff are without a contract and resent legislation passed,but not enacted, that could impose a contract on them.

Furey acknowledged that here toothere's a need to re-establish a relationship with labour leaders.

"There's a need to rebuild relationships," he told reporters. "There's a need to be honest and frank and respectful."

Abreakdown of the new cabinet