“She is someone who represented us strongly and worked very hard. It’s a big disappointment,” says Slave Lake mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee of Pearl Calahasen’s exclusion from the new provincial cabinet.
Ed Stelmach was sworn in as Alberta’s 13th premier last Thursday. The new boss wasted no time in announcing his new cabinet. The next day, 17 Klein cabinet members left office and nine new ones moved in to a sleeker cabinet that sees seven ministries dissolved and integrated into other departments. One of the casualties is Pearl Calahasen and the elimination of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.
“It’s downsizing and the melding of a number of ministries,” says MD 124 reeve Denny Garratt. “I was surprised that neither Mike Cardinal (Minister of Sustainable Resource Development) nor Pearl were included, but that’s his decision and I’m sure he has all kinds of grounds for what he did. I think it was his vision (to make) government more efficient and effective. I don’t think it was a personal slight.”
Stelmach got rid of aboriginal affairs, innovation and science, government services, restructuring and government efficiency, community development, gaming and economic development. Both Garratt and Pillay-Kinnee acknowledge the hard work before them to build bridges with the reorganized cabinet.
“It’s always nice to have a minister and an MLA to work through for special projects and grants,” Garratt says. “Failing that, we’ve operated without a minister for a long time prior to the last several years.”
“Now we have (look) at who we have relationships with and who do we have to make contact with and get to know,” the mayor adds. “It will be a lot of extra work for all the leaders but we have a lot of confidence in Premier Stelmach and will be inviting him to visit Slave Lake.”

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