Ontario’s cabinet ministers have been given clear warning if they get too old, they will be out of the door.
Premier Dalton McGuinty conveyed this message when he dropped his oldest minister, Monte Kwinter, 76, and tried to give his government a more youthful look by bringing in new ministers, including five in their 40s.
Kwinter, who had been minister of Community Safety throughout McGuinty’s first term as premier, accepted it quietly, because he is a good party man, not known to kick up a fuss.
He is disappointed because he and those he worked with, including police, fire and emergency management services, in a ministry that has taken on more importance since 9/11, thought he did a good job.
Kwinter asked McGuinty why he was leaving him out and the premier replied it was a matter of fairness: he wanted to make room in his cabinet for others.
Kwinter said he does not know if he was dropped because of his age. People will have to make their own judgments.
McGuinty has appointed Kwinter chair of a council that tries to increase exports and attract investment. Kwinter is suited to this task, because he once ran a company that did business in many countries, particularly the little known former Soviet republics. But he would have preferred to stay in cabinet.
Kwinter had held important ministries throughout the two periods Liberals have been in power this past half-century, under premier David Peterson from 1985 to 1990.
He will go down as a supreme example of a minister who never got in any trouble, was sensible, reliable and well informed, never in scandals or gaffes and less known than some ministers, which often is the way when a minister does a good job.
Despite his links to business, Kwinter was not a pillar of the establishment. He led the fight that gained recognition for non-traditional medicine against the wishes of many doctors.
People often lose some of their faculties with age, particularly the ability to perform the same physical work as a younger person. An integrity commissioner of the legislature, who had been much admired in that role and earlier as a senior judge, was forced to retire quietly at 78 because one case he handled showed his thinking had become confused.
But politicians often have been able to do their work well at advanced years. The examples include Britain’s Winston Churchill, prime minister at 81, Nelson Mandela becoming president of South Africa at 75, and locally Mississauga mayor Heather McCallion, who still has a firm hand on her municipality at 86.
Some older people may resent a premier’s suggestion someone aged 76 is over the hill and remember it at the next election.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
