Fast tracking

Steven MacKinnon isn't pleased with the transportation system he inherited. Now we'll see whether he can fix it.

“We do have deep and structural problems in our transportation,” Steven MacKinnon said the other day in Toronto.

“We’re not modern enough. We’re too bureaucratic. We haven’t invested enough in our infrastructure. Other countries find us unreliable. These are not good things, not things I’m proud of, but things that have been allowed to fester and that we urgently have to address.”

The venue was an Empire Club lunch at the Royal York at the end of March. MacKinnon is a familiar figure in the Carney government. As Government House Leader, he’s been the lead on steering this near-majority-but-still-not-a-majority government’s legislative agenda. He seems to be, for all anybody can tell, a key player in Carneyland’s game of luring MPs from other parties to the Liberal caucus.

He is also the minister of transport. It’s been the less prominent of his two roles until now. That’s probably changing.