Greg Sorbara was reinstated as Ontario's finance minister on Tuesday afternoon, seven months after he stepped down after being accused of involvement in a fraud case.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty decided to shuffle his cabinet after a judge last week ordered that Sorbara's name be removed from an RCMP search warrant that had implicated him a major fraud investigation.
Police were investigating two land transactions in the late 1990s between a firm owned by Sorbara's family, the Sorbara Group, and Royal Group Technologies, a publicly traded company.
Sorbara sat on Royal Group's board. On May 18, Ontario Superior Court Judge Ian Nordheimer ruled that the RCMP acted too quickly and did not have adequate information when they added Sorbara's name to the warrants.
Sorbara, who resigned in the fall of 2005 but has continued to serve as MPP for Vaughan-King-Aurora, welcomed the judge's ruling.
He has been waging a battle to clear his name since being implicated in the scandal, saying he wasn't aware of the land deals until years after they were completed.
3 other ministers shuffled
The shuffle means Dwight Duncan, who took over Sorbara's job in October, returns to his energy portfolio.
Donna Cansfield, who had taken over the energy portfolio, becomes the new transportation minister, and former transportation minister Harinder Takhar moves to a newly created portfolio, the ministry for small business.