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(To answer a thousand smart-asses: the issue with quotas is not and never was with the merits of women in general, or of Liberal MPs in particular. Had the prime minister simply appointed the cabinet he did Wednesday, without formally stipulating its gender composition in advance — had he simply picked the best people he could find, in other words, half of whom, or 80 per cent of whom, happened to be women — there would have been no argument.)

Of course, 31 ministers are not actually going to govern the country. As in all recent governments, there is a cabinet for show, and a cabinet for real. Who will emerge as the dominant ministers will of course depend on how they perform, or are seen to perform, and who has the prime minister’s ear. But it’s possible to gather a preliminary sense of who’s who from their assignments in cabinet and on cabinet committees.

To begin, there are the traditional senior ministers. The well-regarded Jody Wilson-Raybould is an obvious powerhouse at Justice, with a background as a Crown prosecutor, B.C. Treaty Commissioner and native leader. Likewise for Bill Morneau at Finance, where the hope will be that executive experience and policy chops — he has both a Master’s in Economics and an MBA — are adequate compensation for inexperience in politics.

Former army commander and police detective Harjit Sajjan is an impressive if surprising (given the availability of Leslie) choice at National Defence. Dominic LeBlanc, long-time Trudeau friend and consummate political animal, will soon dispel illusions of a new age of bipartisan comity as Government House Leader. And former Newfoundland cabinet minister Judy Foote seems a solid pick for Public Works (now called Public Services and Procurement).