By Tony Dean

The big news at Queen’s Park today is the appointment of Conservative MPP Elizabeth Witmer as Chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

It’s a good move at the right time for Witmer.

It puts the Liberals within reach of a majority. And it is an obvious blow to the Conservatives, who will lose a stalwart and highly competent member in the Legislature.

Happily, this is a great appointment for the WSIB. It will gain a strong, focused and hard-working Chair who already knows a thing or two about the organization.

As a former labour minister, Witmer worked hard to move the WSIB to a firm business-like footing and to tackle its massive unfunded liability. She is a perfect choice to work alongside Board President David Marshall, who is a strong and collaborative leader.

There will be a focus on the shift in the seat numbers in the Legislature but this only puts the Liberals back where they were on election night – one seat short of a majority. And Witmer’s seat might well be filled by another Conservative in any event.

It's a broader story than this though.

Witmer has been a classy, hard-working and loyal MPP since first being elected in Kitchener-Waterloo in 1990.

She has put in her time at the Legislature and during the Conservative government from 1995 to 2003. Witmer served in four ministerial portfolios - at Labour, Health, Environment and Education. She was highly respected in all of these jobs despite handling some very contentious files.

She was prepared to listen to different points of view and to take a stand on what was fair, and to fight for that. I saw that first-hand while working with her as a public servant at Labour.

Witmer is highly deserving of her board appointment.

Like the recent budget antics in the Legislature, Witmer's departure this will be seen by some disenchanted Conservatives as another self-inflicted wound.

And there might be some mean-spirited reaction from hard-right elements in the Conservative ranks. But these folks were never fans of Witmer's more open-minded and inclusive style. And, perhaps to their detriment, they never really saw her as a strong candidate for party leadership

But that’s all behind her now.

Tony Dean is a former Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of the Ontario Pubic Service. He is currently a professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance and continues to advise governments on public policy.

Witmer a huge plus for WSIB

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