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<\/div>Ottawa – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday made major changes to his Cabinet, making several ministerial appointments in a hid to help stave off increasing unhappiness in the energy-producing west.<\/p>\n
Trudeau’s Liberals lost their majority in an October election and now face a potential national unity crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
They have no legislators in the western oil-rich provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, where anger is growing over tough environmental protection laws that critics say could cripple the energy industry.<\/p>\n
Trudeau moved close ally Chrystia Freeland from the foreign ministry and made her minister of intergovernmental affairs, where she will be dealing directly with Alberta and Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
“Our ability to work well together … is going to be an extremely important thing at a time where we see some very different perspectives across the country that need to be brought together,” Trudeau told reporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
National unity tensions are a particularly painful issue in Canada, where the province of Quebec held a 1995 referendum on independence that failed by a narrow margin.<\/p>\n
Freeland, who rose to prominence by leading Canada’s team at talks to renegotiate a new continental trade deal, also takes on the more symbolic role of deputy prime minister. Freeland is often touted as a possible successor to the prime minister.<\/p>\n
She was born in Alberta and often talks about her roots in the province.<\/p>\n
She could be facing a tough task. Alberta’s ruling United Conservative Party has variously demanded the new environmental rules be scrapped or be toned down.<\/p>\n
The initial reaction in Alberta to Trudeau’s moves was cool, with one well-placed conservative saying it did not matter where Cabinet ministers came from.<\/p>\n
“It’s too soon to say whether this is a good or bad thing because we are beyond the politics of gestures. We need action,” said the conservative, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.<\/p>\n
Daniel Beland, who heads the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal, said the government’s policy towards the west “is more important than who … is around the Cabinet table”.<\/p>\n
The environmental standards that angered westerners were authored by then environment minister Catherine McKenna.<\/p>\n
She was replaced by Jonathan Wilkinson, who backs the proposed expansion of a crude pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast that the energy industry says is vital and that environmentalists oppose.<\/p>\n
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Trudeau named former Trade Minister Jim Carr, who has cancer, to act as his special representative for Alberta, Saskatchewan and the central province of Manitoba.<\/p>\n
Both Alberta and Saskatchewan have right-leaning governments and Melanee Thomas, associate professor at the University of Calgary, said partisanship was clearly one of the reasons for their opposition to Trudeau’s left-of-center Liberals.<\/p>\n
“It’s really difficult to see how something structural or institutional like a government appointment … (is) going to satisfy those two actors,” she said by phone.<\/p>\n
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Trudeau is also under pressure from western industries to quickly end a strike by workers at Canadian National Railway , the country’s largest rail network, which is hitting exports such as grain and oil.<\/p>\n
Freeland was replaced by Francois-Philippe Champagne, previously the infrastructure minister. Finance Minister Bill Morneau stayed in his job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reuters
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