Secretary of State was a title given to some Ministers of State in the Government of Canada sitting outside Cabinet from 1993 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2008. Secretaries of State were members of the ministry and the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. Just as Ministers of State, they were assigned to assist Cabinet ministers, but unlike ministers of state are not themselves members of Cabinet. For instance, the Secretary of State (Training and Youth) would assist the Minister for Human Resources and Development. This usage is opposite to that in the United Kingdom, where junior Ministers generally report to more senior Secretaries of State.
These positions were first used by Jean Chrétien as a way to decrease the size of the cabinet without substantially decreasing the size of the ministry. When Paul Martin became Prime Minister in 2003, this usage ended, and he instead appointed Ministers of State and increased the powers of Parliamentary Secretaries to act in junior policy positions.
Martin's successor Stephen Harper resumed the use of secretaries of state in a Cabinet shuffle on January 4, 2007, but went back to Ministers of State in his October 2008 Cabinet.
This generic usage should not be confused with the former cabinet positions of Secretary of State for Canada (1867–1996) and Secretary of State for External Affairs (1909–1995).
Famous quotes containing the words secretary and/or state:
“The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It was obviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“A perfect personality ... is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,—the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)