Representation Inflation for the ProudStrongDetermiNation

Our Dear Cabinet: a first, visual, impression:

[Data source: Executive Council press releases, 1996-present]

It has taken Danny Williams just four years to inflate his Government Member's Bill to just one ministerial post shy of the Grimes-era record. And it's already as big as the eighteen-member cabinet he once vilified and ridiculed on the floor of the House of Assembly (back in the days when he actually attended) and in the press.

More on that, anon.

And caveat lector: the number of Parliamentary Secretaries for January has arbitrarily set at five. Those posts may have been shuffled around then, and again in April. The Grand Falls-Winsor Advertiser reported on April 12th of this year that Clayton Forsey, in being appointed PC whip, "will take over this position from Conception Bay South MHA Terry French, who assumed the role of parliamentary secretary to the minister of human resources, labour and employment. "

Our Dear Premier, who runs The Most Open And Accountable Government In The Galaxy, never bothered to issue a statement on the PS postings at the times they, and their attendant stipends, were shuffled.