Trump's Cabinet: Lack of Qualifications? What Qualifications?

I'm not a Trump supporter but I do find the discussion about "lack of qualifications" of some of his Cabinet members to be beside the point.

In a parliamentary system such as Canada's the Prime Minister is confined by long-standing tradition (though not by law) to select Cabinet ministers from party members who have been elected to the legislature. So it is not unusual for Ministers to have little or no experience related to their portfolios and/or no management experience. The country and its institutions have survived nonetheless!

The point is that we rely on a professional, "permanent" bureaucracy to manage government Departments and to provide Ministers ("Secretaries" in the US) with technical analysis and policy advice. Ministers are supposed to be politically adept, and understand how to use the technical and administrative know-how of the bureaucracy to fulfill the agenda the Prime Minister was elected to serve. It is of course true that some Ministers are better at it than others. But no one expects any of them to be technical or managerial experts.

While the political and administrative traditions of the US government are distinct from our own, the experience of Canada shows nonetheless that concerns about "no qualifications" are misplaced. If you want something to worry about, let it be the President-elect's political agenda that Cabinet Secretaries will be expected to implement - regardless of what their professional background may be.