ManitobaThe Manitoba government has shuffled some of its most senior officials.Arturo Chang · CBC News · Posted: Aug 29, 2025 12:02 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoFormer NDP MP Daniel Blaikie, seen here in a 2019 file photo, has been appointed to serve under Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew as deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs, according to an order in council issued earlier this week. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)The Manitoba government has shuffled some of its most senior officials.Former NDP MP Daniel Blaikie has been appointed to serve under Premier Wab Kinew as deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs with a starting salary of $169,839, according to an order in council issued earlier this week.Blaikie resigned from his seat in Elmwood-Transcona a year before the federal election to work for the Kinew government. He was appointed as special adviser on intergovernmental affairs to the premier last April.Blaikie’s predecessor in the deputy minister position, Silvester Komlodi, is leaving that role as well as the finance deputy minister position to take over for longtime public servant Scott Sinclair in the health care, seniors and long-term care portfolio.Sinclair, who has served in several senior roles under previous governments — including as deputy minister in the departments of labour and consumer protection and government services — was tapped by the NDP to remain as deputy health minister when the party took over the Progressive Conservatives in 2023.He’s been moved to the agriculture portfolio, replacing Brenda DeSerranno. DeSerranno, in turn, will serve as deputy minister of public service delivery, having been in the position on an acting basis following Joseph Dunford’s departure to work as the City of Winnipeg’s chief administrative officer.Dunford’s predecessor with the city, Michael Jack, was appointed last year as deputy minister of business, mining, trade and job creation, where he remains.Matthew Wiebe has been appointed as acting deputy minister of finance.NDP appointee O’Leary outBrian O’Leary has been shuffled out from his position as a deputy minister of education and childhood learning after being brought in by the NDP in 2023. Before that, he served as superintendent of the Seven Oaks School Division for 22 years, and had also been the party’s campaign chair before stepping down from that role in 1999.O’Leary is being replaced by Mona Pandey, who is moving from the role of deputy minister of municipal and northern relations.New appointees Michelle Wallace and Maurice Bouvier will serve as deputy ministers of labour and immigration and municipal and northern relations, respectively.Wallace will replace Bernadette Preun, who has been deputy minister in various portfolios since 2020. Preun will leave the immigration and labour deputy minister role on Sept. 5.
Manitoba NDP reorganizes top bureaucrats in deputy minister shuffle
