Joey's Note: Donna Skelly's Appointment as P.A. to Minister of EcDev Jim Wilson A Big Opportunity for Skelly

Joey Coleman By , Editor |

Joey Coleman/The Public Record

Donna Skelly speaks at Hamilton City Council in this June 2017 photo

Donna Skelly is Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation, and Trade Jim Wilson.
Hamilton’s sole member of the Provincial Progressive Conservative government, Flamborough-Glanbrook MPP Donna Skelly, gained a P.A. post in the new government, working with Minister Jim Wilson.
First elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1990, Wilson is a seasoned expert in how Queen’s Park functions. Wilson is a Red Tory who will focus on managing his portfolio for the betterment of Ontarians regardless of party affiliation. Skelly will have the opportunity to prove herself as P.A., and if recommended by Wilson, she has a very good chance of making Cabinet during a mid-term shuffle.
(Wilson was opposition critic for higher education while I was working for Macleans. Him and I regularly chatted, do not under-estimate him as I did, he reads his briefings well, and gains knowledge quickly.)

0 thoughts on “Joey's Note: Donna Skelly's Appointment as P.A. to Minister of EcDev Jim Wilson A Big Opportunity for Skelly”

  1. Despite occasional episodes of substantial critical insight, MPP Skelly has tended to favour rhetorical FUD and proposing questions that had long since been answered. You can make cabinet without doing your homework, but you can’t stay there long before being tossed under the bus if you aren’t up to knowing your portfolio inside and out. Skelly’s staff can’t help her when she’s hounded in a press scrum or caught out in idiocy by the opposition. Her political persona for the last eight years has been that of an reflexively partisan opposition Tory. Now she’s part of a government responsible for serving all Ontarians. She can’t wing it any longer.
    Amazingly, Wilson is two years Skelly’s junior, having has spent more than half his life in the Legislature. He’s definitely a serious politician. He was Harris’s Minister of Health for two years, Minister of Energy for five years, Opposition House Leader for seven years and Interim Leader of the Opposition for a year and a half. His resume also illustrates one of the truths about cabinet: The cool, capable and intellectually robust MPPs stay in front-line positions despite changing up portfolios. Wilson will offer an exceptional education.