With just over a year left until the 2019 federal election, the Trudeau government announced a slew of additions and changes to its inner circle last week.

The key changes coming to his cabinet included the splitting of the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs portfolios.

It saw Toronto’s Carolyn Bennett, who has been a minister since 2015, lose the “Northern Affairs” portion of her title to New Brunswick’s Dominic LeBlanc.

LeBlanc will now become the minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade.

“He will also work to address the needs and priorities of northerners, including devolution,” a release from the Prime Minister’s Office noted last Wednesday.

Bennett will now take on just Crown-Indigenous Relations.

The release added that the Toronto MP will “continue her important work to renew the nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown and government-to-government relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples.”

Yukon MP Larry Bagnell told the Star it was a good logistical change to the cabinet duties – even with the federal election looming.

“It’s really a structural change in government, saying Northern Affairs and Crown-Indigenous relations is too big to have in all one department,” he said last Thursday.

He applauded the splitting of the titles, saying it would allow Bennett to narrow her focus.

“I think the change is good in that Carolyn Bennett, I’ve always said her having (about) 640 First Nations to deal with is more a job in itself.”

Pointing out that most Canadians may not necessarily live near a First Nations community, he added that some may not “have an understanding as to the complexity of what Bennett had to deal with.

“So I think it’s a benefit that way regardless of who’s minister and whether there’s an election coming.”

The change in title comes just under a year after Bennett lost the responsibility for Indigenous services to current minister Jane Philpott in August 2017.

There had been some speculation that Bennett may be on her way out of cabinet leading up to last week’s announcement.

That speculation came after reports emerged of First Nations activists crashing an event held in Toronto during last year’s Canada Day.

They expressed disappointment in what they called the federal government’s failure to change on-the-ground conditions for Indigenous people in the country, all the while holding strategic photo-ops.

Also in July last year, a commissioner with the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls resigned, criticizing the structure of the commission.

No one from Bennett’s office has been made available to the Star to comment neither late last week nor today.

As for the future, Bagnell noted that he and LeBlanc were both first elected in 2000. That has allowed them to create a good working relationship that he hopes to further develop over the coming months.

Bagnell praised Bennett for her work with Yukon First Nations.

He said much progress was made on “fiscal discussions” involving resource sharing.

He noted that her work also included supporting the reversal of amendments made by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Act.

Meanwhile, Melanie Joly was stripped from her Heritage ministerial duties, instead handing it off to Quebec counterpart Pablo Rodriguez.

Joly will remain in charge of tourism, official languages and the Francophonie, for which she visited the Yukon earlier this month.

Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair has taken over a role as minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction.

None of the three northern territories has representation in the cabinet.

In a joint release with the Northwest Territories and Nunavut governments issued last Wednesday, Premier Sandy Silver congratulated the new appointments.

“When it comes to the future development of the North and its peoples, decisions should be made with northerners, in recognition and respect of their cultures and diversity,” the release read.

No one from LeBlanc’s office was available to comment last week and today.