Jamaican-Canadian, Mitzie Hunter, Included in Premier Wynne’s Expanded Cabinet

Canada’s Premier Kathleen Wynne has shuffled and expanded her cabinet from 27 members to 30 members, which has an impact on several local members of Parliament. In a surprise move, Jamaican-Canadian Mitzie Hunter, Scarborough-Guildwood MPP, was promoted to Minister of Education from her former position as associate minister of pensions. She will replace Liz Sandals, who will become the president of the Treasury Board. According to Premier Wynne, her new cabinet comprises 40 percent women, and the new ministries she has created are necessary to implement important elements of the Liberal agenda. The plan is now in place, Wynne said, and the focus is on implementation of that plan in order to fulfill the promise to create more jobs and foster more growth. Wynne made her cabinet changes just two years before the next scheduled election, which is slated for June 2018. Critics of the expanded cabinet have called it a “superficial reboot.” Ministers in the cabinet receive $165, 851 in pay, compared to $116, 550 paid to backbench MPPs.