Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his first Cabinet on Tuesday (if you don’t count the caretaker Cabinet he appointed after assuming the leadership of the Liberal Party a few weeks ago). Of necessity that original Cabinet retained a lot of Trudeau holdovers. This one “purpose built for a hinge moment” is truly Mark Carney’s Cabinet, containing many new faces and retaining only a few of those linked to the Trudeau years.
Choices for Cabinet posts are always shaped by the need to reward, to balance regions and sexes all the while demonstrating new purpose and putting people where they can make a contribution by dint of experience or particular intersect. Cabinet making in government is like cabinet making in the carpentry shop. It’s a craft. Too heavy and it falls over, too broad and it can’t fit in the room.
One way to avoid an overly large cabinet is to create a second tier of quasi ministers comprising “Secretaries of State” for this and that, as has been done here. These Secretaries of State have important but narrow responsibilities.
Most notably among the holdovers are Melanie Joly, who is now Minister of Industry, François-Philippe Champagne who remains as Minister of Finance, Anita Anand with a major promotion to Foreign Affairs, Dominique LeBlanc to Canada US Trade, and Chrystia Freeland with Transport and Internal Trade. One returnee of note is Sean Fraser formerly Housing Minister and now Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
Some things to note – there are 8 Ministers with an economic or development role generally (Canada Opportunities Agency, Housing and Infrastructure, the One Canada Economy) or for specific regions ( the North, the Atlantic, the Pacific region, Quebec, Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario, the Prairies). The significant focus on housing, critical infrastructure and regional economic development means there could be a lot of squabbling over the allocation of financial resources.
Newbies include Tim Hodgson at Energy and Natural Resources, who is a big get from the private sector, former Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robinson at Housing and broadcaster Evan Solomon with a new and very “of the moment” portfolio called Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation. The Prime Minister is new to politics but knows parliaments. He served as a civil servant in Canada (at the Department of Finance) and appeared before Parliament when he was Governor of the Bank of Canada. He also had to cope with “the Mother of all Parliaments” at Westminster when he served as Governor of the Bank of England. A number of new Ministers have had no government experience. Mistakes will be made and the Prime Minister’s patience will be challenged when that happens.
New and old will hit the ground running with Parliament back in session at the end of the month. Still to come are announcements on important Cabinet Committees, Parliamentary Secretaries who play a key role backing up Ministers and the full staff of the Prime Ministers Office whose unenviably task is to make this all work smoothly.
Here is the complete Cabinet list:
- Shafqat Ali, President of the Treasury Board
- Rebecca Alty, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations
- Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety
- François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue
- Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs and Minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency
- Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
- Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
- Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Transport and Internal Trade
- Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages
- Mandy Gull-Masty, Minister of Indigenous Services
- Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario
- Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources
- Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions
- Dominic LeBlanc, President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy
- Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement
- Heath MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
- Steven MacKinnon, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
- David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
- Jill McKnight, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence
- Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
- Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health
- Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience and Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada
- Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada
- Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade
- Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
- Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries
- Rechie Valdez, Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism)
The new Secretaries of State are appointed as follows:
- Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development)
- Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State (Defence Procurement)
- Anna Gainey, Secretary of State (Children and Youth)
- Wayne Long, Secretary of State (Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions)
- Stephanie McLean, Secretary of State (Seniors)
- Nathalie Provost, Secretary of State (Nature)
- Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)
- Randeep Sarai, Secretary of State (International Development)
- Adam van Koeverden, Secretary of State (Sport)
- John Zerucelli, Secretary of State (Labour)