Trudeau's policy picks were to check boxes on unwritten gender and race quotas. They are unlikely to have been the best people for the positions, because that wasn't the criteria being applied. Some people might take umbrage at me calling it out like that, but it sure looks like that's what actually happened. It was affirmative action to score political points.

I don't like or agree with affirmative action as a policy. It's slapping a bandaid on the problem without addressing root causes. It's demeaning to the people selected, and it's discrimination on constitutionally protected grounds of gender, race, sexual identity, etc.

Frankly most of Trudeau's initial cabinet picks were just Chretien era loyalists.

People tend to value skills they themselves possess. If you have a leader with good technical skills then he will probably pick people with good technical skills. So socially competent leaders look for socially competent underlings, leaders who got there via nepotism probably applies nepotism as well when choosing etc.