Prime Minister Stephen Harper has shuffled his federal cabinet and local MP Dave MacKenzie didn't make the cut. MacKenzie tells Heart FM it's not his desire to be a cabinet minister. "I've had my opportunities to talk to the Prime Minister and he knows full well that's not something that I would aspire to. I'm happy to be the member from Oxford. You know a Cabinet Minister in a federal government means that you're rarely home." As for his role in the government, MacKenzie says at this point he is not sure if it will change. "There's going to be some changes and certainly, I work for The Whip, Gordon O'Connor and Gordon is not in this shuffle, I suspect by his own choosing and John Duncan has gone in so I'm not sure if I'll be Deputy Whip or what my role will be but I'm just happy to be the member for Oxford honestly." As for the shuffle, MacKenzie says like all things, sometimes you just need to freshen things up. "It would be like a major league sports team that wins the championship, you know the next year they still have to look at doing some changes, making some changes, bringing some new people in and that kind of thing. I wasn't surprised and I thought it was an appropriate time and I think the Prime Minister had telegraphed that for some time." MacKenzie says the Cabinet is a good mix of rookies and veterans. He says when you're in the middle of a term there is no brand new people right off the street so even the new people have had the opportunity to show what they're made of. A list of its members (in order of precedence): _ Stephen Harper, prime minister; _ Bernard Valcourt, minister of aboriginal affairs and northern development; _ Rob Nicholson, minister of national defence; _ Peter MacKay, minister of justice and attorney general of Canada; _ Rona Ambrose, minister of health; _ Diane Finley, minister of public works and government services; _ John Baird, minister of foreign affairs; _ Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board; _ Jim Flaherty, minister of finance; _ Peter Van Loan, government leader in the House of Commons; _Jason Kenney, minister of employment and social development; _ Gerry Ritz, minister of agriculture and agri-food; _ Christian Paradis, minister of international development and minister for La Francophonie; _ James Moore, minister of industry; _ Denis Lebel, minister of infrastructure, communities and intergovernmental affairs and minister of the economic development agency of Canada for the regions of Quebec; _ Leona Aglukkaq, minister of the environment, minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and minister for the Arctic Council; _ Lisa Raitt, minister of transport; _ Gail Shea, minister of fisheries and oceans; _ Julian Fantino, minister of veterans affairs; _ Steven Blaney, minister of public safety; _ Ed Fast, minister of international trade; _ Joe Oliver, minister of natural resources; _ Kerry-Lynne Findlay, minister of national revenue; _ Shelly Glover, minister of Canadian heritage and official languages; _ Chris Alexander, minister of citizenship and immigration; _ Kellie Leitch, minister of labour and minister of status of women; _ Maxime Bernier, minister of state for small Business and Tourism, and Agriculture; _ Lynne Yelich, minister of state for foreign affairs and consular; _ Gary Goodyear, minister of state for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario; _ Rob Moore, minister of state for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency; _ John Duncan, minister of state and chief government whip; _Tim Uppal, minister of state for multiculturalism; _ Alice Wong, minister of state for seniors; _ Bal Gosal, minister of state for sport; _Kevin Sorenson, minister of state for Finance; _ Pierre Poilievre, minister of state for democratic reform; _ Candice Bergen, minister of state for social development; _ Greg Rickford, minister of state for science and technology, and Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario; _ Michelle Rempel, minister of state for western economic diversification.
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