Every government has to have a steady hand on the wheel. In the current Liberal government, it’s Ralph Goodale, minister of Public Safety.

In a speech to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police the other day, Goodale took his audience through the hot files that have landed on his desk since the Liberals took office last fall: re-settling 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada; the Black Friday terror attack in Paris last November and the attack in Nice on Bastille Day; wildfires in northern Alberta and the evacuation of 90,000 people from Fort McMurray — the biggest Canadian natural disaster of modern times.

Just last week, of course, there was the coordinated police takedown of Aaron Driver, a 24-year old ISIS sympathizer with an improvised explosive on his person. The device went off in a cab near London, Ontario; Driver evidently was on his way to a mall there, having made a video promising to shed Canadian blood for the terrorist cause.

To every one of these situations, Goodale has brought his characteristic phlegmatic demeanour: Keep calm and carry on.

In the case of Driver, police were acting on information posted to social media by the ISIS acolyte and picked up by the FBI. Asked about cooperation between the RCMP and FBI, Goodale replied that it happens all the time — the Americans share information with us, we share it with them. Next question.

Driver had frequently broken the terms of his court-ordered peace bond, which barred him from weapons and proselytizing for ISIS on social media. Goodale mused that the government may look at revising the law to compel terror suspects under peace bonds “to engage with counter-radicalization professionals.”

In any event, Goodale said, the Driver incident demonstrated the need to “up our game” in deprogramming potential homegrown terrorists. He repeated the Trudeau government’s promise to hire a deradicalization adviser with an annual budget of $10 million and a mandate to work with cities on their own deradicalizing efforts.

As for cyber security, Goodale pointed to the obvious need to balance security requirements with protecting personal privacy. Asked by CBC’s Power and Politics whether police could compel divulgence of telephone encryption codes, Goodale pointed to Apple refusing to do so for the FBI, and said it was a debate in progress.

Amending the previous Conservative government’s anti-terror legislation, Bill C-51, is another delicate task on Goodale’s plate. The Liberals promised in the election campaign to “repeal the problematic elements of Bill C-51.” Goodale has spoken of “a series of very specific amendments to what we believe is wrong in C-51 … but we want to hear from Canadians about what else they think needs to be added to the list.”

Every government has one cabinet minister who enjoys the complete confidence of the prime minister. Every government has one cabinet minister who enjoys the complete confidence of the prime minister.

In other words, consultations before any bill in the House — which may preclude amendments to C-51 during the fall sitting.

At 66, Goodale doesn’t get excited about stuff like that. He’s not inscrutable — just imperturbable. One former senior staffer describes Goodale as “prudent … you can’t be anything but prudent when you’re a Liberal from Saskatchewan.”

He is the lone Liberal MP from Saskatchewan, and has been for the last three elections. He has served 28 years in Parliament, from 1974-79, and again since 1993 as a member from Regina.

This means Goodale is always up to date on the Saskatchewan Roughriders. “How are the Riders going to be this year?” he was asked at an Ottawa reception in June. “This is going to be a re-building year,” he said — which was putting it mildly (the Roughriders are firmly in last place in the CFL West). He also would have been following Saskatchewan’s Graham DeLaet in last week’s Olympic men’s golf tournament, where he finished out of medal contention but with a very good score of four under par. Nothing about his home province is off Goodale’s radar.

There are two elements to Goodale’s style: He’s a problem-solver and a team player.

This was evident in the government’s management of the refugee file. Some 25,000 Syrian applicants were processed and cleared at refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, then flown to Canada and re-settled in their new country in the dead of winter. Since they were all families, there wasn’t a likely terror suspect among them. No fuss, no bother. (Take that, Donald Trump.)

Several cabinet ministers and many officials, including Immigration Minister John McCallum, deserve credit for the successful resettlement effort, but Goodale was a leading member of the team (although he would be the first to say that Canadians themselves deserve the credit for opening their communities and homes to the Syrians).

During the terrible wildfires that swept northern Alberta in May, Goodale was in charge of the government’s response. At one point, he assured Fort Mac residents: “We’re standing with you and we have your back.” Encountered walking from Parliament Hill to the Château Laurier one day in the midst of the wildfire crisis, Goodale was congratulated for his management of the file. He replied that he was just doing his job.

And it wasn’t a job he wanted or expected when the Liberals took office. It’s no secret that Goodale would have preferred to be Finance minister again, as he was when the Martin government produced two surplus budgets in 2004 and 2005. When you consider the other portfolios Goodale has held, from Agriculture to Public Works to Natural Resources, it’s obvious that he’s uniquely experienced in the machinery of government. But he’s also crossed the desert with the Liberals, as House leader during their wilderness years from 2006-15.

Every government has one cabinet minister who enjoys the complete confidence of the prime minister. In Pierre Trudeau’s time, his go-to guy was Marc Lalonde. In Brian Mulroney’s government, Don Mazankowski was chief operating officer. In Jean Chrétien’s decade in office, Paul Martin was indispensable … until he wasn’t. During the Harper years, Jim Flaherty was a powerhouse at Finance but also a political actor with superb instincts. Nothing ever flustered Flaherty, who was interested in working through issues and getting things done.

Goodale is rather like that. And on any list of strong ministers in Justin Trudeau’s government, his name is right at the top.

Just don’t ask him how the Roughriders are doing this season.

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