Battle River-Wainwright MLA Doug Griffiths takes on new cabinet post

Doug Griffiths, MLA for Battle River-Wainwright, was moved from his post as Minister of Municipal Affairs to Minister of Service Alberta on Friday, as Premier Alison Redford announced what she termed, “A strengthened ministerial team that will drive the next phase of the Building Alberta Plan, while continuing to rebuild in the wake of the worst natural disaster in Alberta’s history.”

In the shuffle, one new ministry was formed, called Jobs, Skills, Training, and Labour, which will be run by former Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk.

Replacing Lukaszuk in the Advanced Education portfolio, and as deputy premier is Dave Hancock.

Manmeet Bhullar moves from Service Alberta to Human Services, and Robin Campbell will take over the Environment and Sustainable Resource Development portfolio, moving from Aboriginal Relations. Campbell will also take on the role of Government House Leader.

Ken Hughes will move to Municipal Affairs from Energy, Diana McQueen will move to Energy from Environ-ment.

Two other changes have Wayne Drysdale moving from Infrastructure to Transportation, and Ric McIver going the other way, from Transportation to Infrastructure.

Redford says, “Albertans elected our government to lead in changing times, and with this team we will meet the challenges associated with our enormous population growth head-on.
“I’m excited about the work ahead in building Alberta – for the 4 million Albertans today, and the million more we’ll welcome over the next 10 years.”

Leslie Cholowsky
Editor