editorial: can jenna sudds and karen mccrimmon get the ear of the pm or premier?
the new families minister will be challenged to get trudeau focused on ottawa's needs. the new mpp joins a team doug ford tries to ignore.
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karen mccrimmon is now the liberal mpp for kanata-carleton. her federal counterpart, jenna sudds, has just joined justin trudeau's cabinet.
jean levac
/
postmedia
pairing newly minted federal cabinet minister jenna sudds with provincial byelection winner karen mccrimmon to champion the same riding at two different levels of government is a great outcome for the liberals. for ottawa more broadly, it’s a mixed result.
sudds is clearly a rising political star. five years ago, she wasn’t an elected official of any kind. in 2018, she won the city council seat for kanata north. before council’s term ended, she had jumped to federal politics, taking the kanata-carleton seat in 2021 (after two-term mp mccrimmon stepped away for family reasons). sudds was quickly named a parliamentary secretary and now, less than two years later, she’s a full cabinet minister, in charge of the families portfolio.
mccrimmon, an armed forces veteran well-regarded when she served as mp, won the kanata-carleton seat provincially this week, delivering a significant boost to ontario’s limping grits.
both politicians have deep riding experience and have delivered for their party. that’s not enough for the national capital.
ottawa needs a strong voice at the federal cabinet table — this is, ahem, the seat of national government — but sudds’s ascension to that elite group, despite her talent, feels more like the checking-off of political boxes: balancing female representation; shoring up a riding that could swing tory; spotlighting someone who can needle neighbouring mp pierre poilievre. but with non-ottawans now in other crucial cabinet roles such as treasury board and canadian heritage, sudds will be hard-pressed to focus team trudeau on the capital’s urgent needs, such as final fixes to the phoenix disaster, luring public servants back downtown, and fostering harmony between the ncc and the city.
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meanwhile, mccrimmon’s victory provincially points to a different aspect of the problem, one she cannot solve. with the resignation earlier this year of the progressive conservative minister who had represented the riding, dr. merrilee fullerton, there’s no ottawa voice at all in the provincial cabinet of doug ford.
the premier, obsessed as he is with toronto and the gta in general, shows little aptitude for helping ottawa flourish, beyond offering assistance for weather emergencies and shoring up highway infrastructure. while ford is right to say there will be no lrt stage 3 funding until the current mess is sorted, how will he be properly and regularly briefed on ottawa’s transit, health or housing challenges, all of which require provincial support?
so congratulations to both sudds and mccrimmon for tackling new and difficult roles. hard slogging lies ahead. a capital city in need of champions awaits your efforts.
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