Re-elected Conservative MP Gerry Ritz looks forward to getting back to work in Ottawa after his party won a majority mandate in last Monday's election.
The Conservatives won 167 seats according to the latest numbers, although three of those apparent victories are so close that judicial recounts are expected in those ridings. Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with the Governor-General David Johnston at Rideau Hall Wednesday to inform him of the election results.
Ritz, who was re-elected MP for Battlefords-Lloydminster, expects Harper will call Parliament into session quickly so the government can get moving on its main order of business - passing the federal budget that went by the wayside when the government was defeated in the House in March.
"This strength of a majority lets us get started," said Ritz on election night. He noted the government can proceed quickly on some early confidence votes when it comes back, on the throne speech, the budget bill and the budget implementation bill, which will have no trouble passing.
"With a majority now we can move those through fairly quickly," said Ritz.
That will allow the government to get into what it had pledged to do, he said, which is move forward on the omnibus bill on justice issues before the spring session is out.
"We had pledged to have a spring session, so the work begins tomorrow morning," said Ritz. He said the government hopes the budget will be brought down in June.
As for government departments, it remained business as usual for them. During the election Ritz said he signed some special warrants to keep government departments and program spending going.
"The Department of Agriculture is still in business, there are still programs that have to be rolled out," said Ritz, whose own role was a hands-off one during the election period.
A number of cabinet changes will be coming to fill vacancies of both recently-retired Conservative MPs as well as those defeated in the election. Among the losses were foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon and veterans' affairs minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn.
Whether Ritz, who served as minister of Agriculture and Agri-foods and minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, will remain in his longtime role or shift to another portfolio remains to be seen. But he acknowledged there will be some changes coming to the cabinet table.
"There's always a certain amount of shuffling as the prime minister puts a new team on the field," said Ritz.
Ritz will be facing a much different opposition than before, as Jack Layton and the New Democrats take over as the official Opposition.
He expects that new role will result in a shift in tone from the NDP compared to when they were the fourth-place party in the House and free to propose whatever they wanted. The new role may "couch what Layton says and does," said Ritz.
"When you're the official opposition and your next hurdle is government itself, you have to be a lot more careful in what you promise and cost what you're going to do, because people will look at you with a little different lens."
