Prime Minister Carney to unveil his cabinet Tuesday — and many new faces are expected

Prime Minister Mark Carney will unveil his new cabinet Tuesday after returning his party to power last month — and some major front-bench changes are expected as he looks to remake the Liberals in his image.

An official in the Prime Minister’s Office, speaking to CBC News on background, said roughly half of the soon-to-be ministers walking up the driveway to Rideau Hall for the swearing-in ceremony will be new to cabinet.

The government official said the cabinet will be on the smaller side — fewer than 30 full cabinet members — but there will be also be as many as 10 secretaries of state, a long-dormant ministerial designation Carney is reviving.

There will be many new faces around the cabinet table because Carney got a mandate from voters to change up the government, the official said.

Liberal sources tell CBC News and Radio-Canada that Quebec MPs Joël Lightbound, who was first elected in 2015, and Nathalie Provost, a gun control advocate elected earlier this month, will be among the people being sworn in Tuesday — but it’s unclear if they will be full ministers or secretaries of state.

Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland and Canadian Culture and Identity Minister Steven Guilbeault will both remain in cabinet in some capacity, sources said. Jonathan Wilkinson, who currently serves as natural resources minister, is out.

Carney is building a team to take on U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs and help prop up a faltering Canadian economy as the country grapples with higher joblessness amid tremendous trade uncertainty.

The prime minister is also dealing with some restlessness in Western Canada as some of the region’s leaders, including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, urge the federal government to be more friendly to their interests, namely fast-tracking natural resource development, after a period of perceived hostility under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Carney’s cabinet to focus of fighting U.S. tariffs

Carney and his team have been relatively tight-lipped about what’s to come — with the newly elected prime minister only saying he will have an “efficient” and “focused” cabinet, which suggests there will be fewer people in the ministry than there were under Trudeau. Like his predecessor, Carney is promising gender parity around the table.

By comparison, Trudeau’s last cabinet had 39 ministers — roughly a quarter of the Liberal caucus — while Carney’s interim cabinet, announced shortly after he assumed the party’s leadership in March, had just 24.

One of the changes Carney is expected to announce Tuesday is a sort of “tiered” model of cabinet — with senior ministers responsible for big portfolios and then secretaries of state holding more junior roles, sources have told CBC News.

If enacted, this could be another departure from how Trudeau arranged his government because all ministers, whether they were responsible for finance or small regional development agencies, stood on equal footing.

Carney is expected to go ahead with this change because it would allow for a core group of senior ministers, namely those responsible for major departments, to meet frequently and deal with central government issues — a more nimble arrangement so that the new prime minister could conceivably get things done faster.

The government official said these secretaries of state will be more than just junior ministers, however — they will provide dedicated leadership on key issues and priorities and they will be invited to cabinet and cabinet committee meetings for items related to their responsibilities.

John Manley, a former finance minister and deputy prime minister under Jean Chrétien, said Carney will have to make some “tough decisions” if he wants to both keep cabinet small and add some new faces.

Some of the ministers Carney tapped just a few weeks ago could be out of cabinet. He has more potential names to choose from after voters elected 170 Liberal MPs to Parliament.

Former Quebec finance minister Carlos Leitão and Tim Hodgson, a seasoned Toronto-area business executive, could be among the new people going into cabinet, Manley said, because they are closely aligned with Carney’s pro-business, pro-growth vision for the country.

“There are some people who are there now who have had seats at the table, who are pretty well known to Canadians, who are not going to make the cut,” Manley said in an interview.

“He has to make sure his cabinet presents a very different face than the one that surrounded Justin Trudeau. He’s going to need to change those really high-profile positions, the ones that are most seen by Canadians,” he said, referencing finance, justice, industry and foreign affairs.

Manley said there may be some hurt feelings and disgruntled ministers after this shuffle, but Carney has the right to shape the cabinet he wants — especially when he brought the party to victory after polls suggested the Liberals were destined for almost certain defeat under Trudeau. 

“If I were him, I wouldn’t feel any obligation to reappoint anybody to a role they’ve barely been in for two months,” Manley said. “They’re all in Parliament today because Mark Carney was able to turn things around.”

Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University, says there will inevitably be some overlap between the Trudeau and Carney ministries because the former central banker did not have much time to recruit many candidates of his own.

While Carney can bat away Conservative claims that he’s “just like Justin,” because he just won a solid minority government, Turnbull said Carney will want to refashion the cabinet so that it reflects who he is — a leader who has said he will be laser-focused on the economy.

“I think he will want to put his own people on the front bench. He will want to have some sort of ownership of this cabinet,” Turnbull said in an interview with CBC News

Still, Turnbull said it’s possible Carney weighs experience and continuity when deciding who will fill which roles.

International Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who has taken a leading role on Canada-U.S. relations and Ottawa’s dealings with the provinces as intergovernmental affairs minister, is one person who will likely keep a job in cabinet, Turnbull said, because he has developed connections to the Trump administration at this crucial moment.

At least one of the other U.S. specialists, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, will likely also be kept on, Turnbull said, in some capacity.

Turnbull said who is in cabinet may matter less than usual because so much of the focus is on Carney, who has promised to do a lot of the heavy lifting himself as the country’s present challenges — trade and economic woes — fall into his wheelhouse.

“I think this is all about Carney. The focus is really on him as opposed to who his ministers are,” Turnbull said.

Turnbull said Carney, the experienced businessman, may also take a “CEO-like” approach to governing, with his cabinet ministers serving as something like corporate vice-presidents — lieutenants responsible for their respective portfolios and empowered to make decisions.

“This sort of delegation, if it works well, could lead to big results for the government overall because what he’s trying to do, of course, is enormous,” she said.

Manley said decentralizing power will almost certainly help get things done faster. He said passing everything through the Prime Minister’s Office, as was the standard practice under former prime minister Stephen Harper and then Trudeau, bogged things down.

“That’s the way you get things done. You don’t tie ministers up in red tape and bureaucracy if you want to see them actually make a difference.”