With his cabinet picks, Trudeau signals he's a PM in a hurry

Justin Trudeau described his new cabinet Tuesday as "a team of familiar faces and new faces that are ready to put all their strengths, all their hard work toward delivering for Canadians in the coming years."

"Delivering" may be the key word here.

According to a senior Liberal source, the speed and urgency with which the government was able to operate while responding to the pandemic crisis led the prime minister to wonder whether the government could move faster and more ambitiously to deal with challenges like climate change and the housing shortage.

Even as COVID-19 slowly recedes, there's no shortage of issues that can or should be viewed as crises — not only climate change and housing but things like reconciliation, economic growth and failures of leadership within the Canadian Forces.

The government also may now assume it has two years to run before another election — which is both a decent amount of time to do some things and not a lot of time if you want or need to do a lot.

Every federal cabinet in history has been put together with the goal of actually getting a few things done. But if the demands of the moment are urgent — and if this government particularly needs to show it can make real progress — then the question is whether this is a cabinet built to deliver.

Viewed from that angle, Tuesday's announcement saw a number of intriguing moves.

Trudeau's first cabinet, unveiled six years ago on a sunny day, was conspicuously flashy — and not just because it established a new standard for gender parity. The health minister was a doctor, the finance minister was a CEO and the defence minister was a decorated soldier. The justice minister was an Indigenous lawyer. There was an astronaut.

One can debate how well that first cabinet worked out.

Six years later, on a cold and rainy day, Trudeau unveiled a cabinet of people he has known for years (including friends and long-time associates like Mélanie Joly, Omar Alghabra, Marc Miller, Mark Holland, Dominic LeBlanc and Seamus O'Regan) and people he presumably trusts.

It's decidedly less flashy. There is no longer a minister of middle class prosperity. And even the astronaut is out — Marc Garneau is apparently scheduled to blast off to an overseas diplomatic appointment in the near future.

The flashiest, most 2015-like appointment on Tuesday was that of Steven Guilbeault, the celebrated environmental activist and Trudeau's new minister of the environment. That move may be exciting for environmental groups and the voters who would like to see the government move aggressively against climate change. But in terms of getting things done, it's also a gamble.

For one thing, Guilbeault's immediate predecessor — Jonathan Wilkinson — made steady progress on the government's policy goals while proving to be a smart and practical, though unexciting, communicator. For another, Guilbeault was nothing like that while serving as heritage minister. The fight over his signature legislative initiative was particularly loud, messy and ultimately unsuccessful.

Wilkinson is at least not going very far. As natural resources minister he could have a significant role to play in the government's climate agenda, presumably including the Liberal commitment to legislate emissions limits for the oil and gas industry.