Pickering’s Bethlenfalvy returns to Finance; Jones replaces Elliot in Premier Ford’s new cabinet

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Published June 24, 2022 at 12:40 pm

Pickering-Uxbridge MPP Peter Bethlenfalvy is keeping the prestigious Finance portfolio with former Solicitor General Sylvia Jones stepping into the Deputy Premier and Health Minister role, a job that was held by long-time Whitby lawyer Christine Elliot.

Elliot was married to the late Jim Flaherty, a Whitby MPP and MP who served as the Finance Minister for both Ontario Premier Mike Harris and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

David Piccini, whose Northumberland-Peterborough South riding takes in a portion of Clarington, returns as Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced his new, 30-person cabinet today, with many of the cabinet ministers remaining in the same portfolios they held during Ford’s last government, including Stephen Lecce in education and Caroline Mulroney in transportation.

Steve Clark remains as municipal affairs and housing minister, Monte McNaughton remains in labour, Doug Downey will be attorney general again, and Vic Fedeli stays in economic development.

There are some new faces in cabinet, including Ford’s nephew Michael Ford, who is named minister of citizenship and multiculturalism; Michael Kerzner, a bioscience and technology entrepreneur elected in York Centre as Solicitor General; and Neil Lumsden, a former Canadian Football League star who won the long-time NDP seat of Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, named as minister of tourism, culture and sport.

He replaces Lisa MacLeod in that portfolio, who is one of only a handful of people to be dropped from cabinet.

There are just seven women in Ford’s new cabinet, versus nine in his initial 21-person cabinet four years ago.

With files from the Canadian Press

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