OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has named Joe Oliver as his new finance minister.
Oliver -- who had been the natural resources minister -- replaces Jim Flaherty, who has decided to resign from cabinet.
Junior minister Greg Rickford, meanwhile, takes over at Natural Resources, but retains responsibility for the agency overseeing development of the Ring of Fire mineral deposit in northern Ontario.
Ed Holder, who represents the southern Ontario riding of London West, replaces Rickford as minister of state for science and technology.
The 73-year-old Oliver is widely respected within the Harper cabinet and among Conservatives, and is well known on Bay Street, having spent decades working there as an investment banker.
He went on to become executive director of the Ontario Securities Commission and then president of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada.
