Convenient

For the most part, the Sask Party cabinet shuffle looks to be mostly a matter of a government shuffling deck chairs for lack of anything useful to do. But there's one change which does look to be highly significant.

In Brad Wall's first cabinet, Lyle Stewart was entrusted with the job of overseeing the Wall government's top apparent priority (the establishment of Enterprise Saskatchewan). And in that role, he was also one of the regular points of contact between the Sask Party and Bruce Power on nuclear development issues while also holding responsibility for the Uranium Development Partnership.

Now, by now removing Stewart from cabinet entirely, Wall has sent the message that he (a) doesn't see Stewart as deserving of a continued place in cabinet, and (b) doesn't want Stewart having to answer opposition questions about what's happened to date as the Sask Party's nuclear strongarming continues. But while the shuffle will surely be used as an excuse for the new cabinet to claim ignorance while rushing through an approval process, it should also signal that Wall himself doesn't apparently have confidence in how the issue has been handled so far - giving the province even less reason to give the Sask Party the benefit of any doubt.