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Five Island MLAs have been tapped for cabinet positions in Premier John Horgan’s majority NDP government.

Horgan announced his 24-member cabinet Thursday afternoon, with ministers swearing their oath over live video feed.

Former Tofino mayor Josie Osborne, elected in October to the Mid Island-Pacific Rim riding, was made the minister of municipal affairs, a position previously held by Selina Robinson, now the finance minister.

Murray Rankin, MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, will be the province’s Indigenous relations and reconciliation minister, taking over the portfolio from Scott Fraser, who did not seek re-election. Rankin served as NDP member of Parliament for Victoria from 2012 to 2019 and was house leader for the federal NDP.

Sheila Malcolmson, a former MP who was elected MLA for Nanaimo in a 2019 byelection, is the new minister of mental health and addictions, a difficult portfolio as B.C. battles the opioid overdose crisis. On Wednesday, the B.C. Coroners Service revealed that 162 people died of illicit drug overdoses in October, the fifth month this year with more than 160 suspected illicit drug deaths.

Victoria-Swan Lake MLA Rob Fleming is no longer education minister, replaced by Jennifer Whiteside, a rookie MLA representing New Westminster. Fleming was shuffled to the transportation and infrastructure portfolio.

Fleming was education critic when the NDP was in Opposition. He was appointed education minister in 2017 after the NDP formed a minority government in coalition with the B.C. Green Party.

Lana Popham, MLA for Saanich South, will continue as minister of agriculture.

More to come

kderosa@timescolonist.com