Couillard's Spring Cabinet: Start with one Gutsy Lady de Santis and then another, and ..

Between Caffe Italia on Blvd St. Laurent and Caffe San Simeon on Dante mid way between St. Laurent and St. Dominique, there are about sixty footsteps. Most habitues of the one occasionally wander over for a chiacchierata with a buddy that's waiting for another buddy but likes the charm of one Caffe more than the other. These days however, the coffe-shops are filled with raucous and discussions of which Liberal MNA will get which cabinet post and, if you listen very attentively without closing in-some people may get the wrong vib, whether the Italian MNA-Rita de Santis will get anything.

In my opinion, de Santis is a gutsy lady. She showed up to the Party when most members were licking their wounds, tying new knots or fading into prehistory. As a junior MNA she assumed the role of Health critic and for most of the time was soft-spoken with little media visibility. According to many, that was the best thing she did. Glitter and glamour don't befit her. The lady has a Biochemistry background before taking her McGill Law degree and moving up the difficult trek at Davies Ward Phillips Vineberg to become a Partner. The rest is part of the profession's gilted secrets.

Do you give her a gender ministerial role? come on ragazzi, this is Little Italy, those days are gone.
Do we keep her away from Business? I liked that approach from a nonno, waiting for the nod, but the nod never came? My first reaction was -apart from Finance most roles in the area are junior. No Besinessss! said his cumpar  
Plug-ins as recognition of loyalty and deserving of merit: immigration, culture, and other elements in that subset. No!No! E piu ingamba! saith the Caffe owner.
Education? says the Mercedes owner. Some kid from Casgrain near St. Zotique who attended Concordia University a few years ago remembers her as a bit too intransigent: Fammi 'sto piacere..qualch'altro posto per l'Avvocatessa. 

Well, she's smart lawyer, intransigent (have a problem believing that), loyal, gutsy, ambitious,  perfectly bilingual, also speaks "I-talian" according to a Boston tourist that visits his mom every six months. From the corner table Virgilio throws out- e perche non Justice, Sante, Energie. She was after all, it seems, mentored by Me. Ciaccia- a former Bourassa cabinet minister for Energies et Ressources (1985-89). Virgilio has been around for a lifetime-according to some.  They brag that all he eats is rapini.  Now Energy covers big files and big issues and big business,and she's acquainted very well with the operations of Hydro Quebec.

Positions formed and conversations, sometimes monologues dragged on, tugging one way and the other. It had been a while that Little Italy had been so a-buzz with bickering. The last noise was, I think, Sunday morning after the Soccer matches. This time the buzz was pleasantly enjoyable. Uno !! NO, UNA dei nostri, piuttosto delle NOSTRE was breaking through, and from their perspective she was better than tutte le altre with the exception of one, according to un commendatore, (figuratively), a darling of Quebec and Canada-Marie-Josee Drouin, now Marie-Josee Kravis, from Ottawa, who unfortunately never ran for public office, and has since, like many others, left La Belle Province and le Pays du Nord for the world.

As for de Santis. I like Tullio's outburst. Justice! Ci vogliono cogl.... e lei ne ha! Some expressions get Lost in Translation.

Ministre de la Justice: sounds fine. Balance out the snickers- most modern jurisprudence has origins in Roman Law, and this should weigh in against the -phobes. But then she likes to travel the trade routes, the human right routes...her parliamentary Committee work is also the world at large to the US, Europe, the rest of Canada. Yet, I still think Justice is a good fit.

So is Ministre de la Sante et des Services sociaux: Big in the US, Big in Canada and BIG in Quebec. BIG Challenge for a Gutsy Lady. La Sante a good fit.

Bets? ummm...too early in spring.

PS. If you're lucky while strolling through Little Italy, towards Caffe Via Dante (another well kept secret for a good restaurant) and Patisserie Alati-Caserta (best Zeppole di San Giuseppe in the world) you may catch a glimpse of another of La Petite Italie's best kept secrets-Angelo Mingarelli -probably the world's best mathematician in his field, walking his infamous dog.