RANDALL WHITE, “CANADA’S CAPITAL REGION FROM FOUR HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES WEST”. FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2025. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new Canadian federal cabinet held its first meeting the day before yesterday.

One of its “first orders of business” was a “tax cut for the middle class. Starting July 1, hard-working Canadians will keep more of their paycheques.”

This certainly underlines why some observers have wondered why Liberal PM Carney didn’t run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. (And finally run on the track former Conservative PM Stephen Harper tried to set him on back when.)

Yet even an only slightly closer look at the members of Mr. Carney’s “smaller, focused cabinet with mix of veteran MPs, new faces, and several role changes” suggests a more complex and ultimately serious (North American) “liberal” edge to Canada’s new government in Ottawa.

(1) General shape of things to come (according to CBC News)

PM Carney’s new cabinet has 28 ministers, and 10 secretaries of state (“a long-dormant designation Carney is reviving” — these secretaries will not attend full cabinet meetings : only those where their specific responsibilities are involved). It includes “a mix of many new faces and some veterans.”

The full group of 38 includes “24 new people — 13 of them recently elected …Speaking to reporters after the swearing-in ceremony, Carney pitched the cabinet overhaul as a nod to Canadians’ desire for change … ‘We’re going to deliver on that mandate with a new team, purpose-built for this hinge moment in Canada’s history … We’ve been elected to do a job and we intend to do it quickly and forcefully’.”

“Regional representation” is always important in Canadian cabinets. Here “Eleanor Olszewski, who just won a seat in central Edmonton, is the sole minister from Alberta and is responsible for emergency management. Saskatchewan doesn’t have a full cabinet minister but MP Buckley Belanger will represent that province as secretary of state with a focus on rural development.” (And note here that Alberta elected only 2 Liberals from its 37 MPs, and Saskatchewan only 1 Liberal from 14.)

Meanwhile, “Central Canada is well-represented … with 11 of the full ministers from Ontario [a share of the larger group virtually identical to Ontario’s democratic share of the Canada-wide population] … and seven from Quebec [again similar to the Canada-wide population share enjoyed by la belle province]… There are two ministers from BC and Nova Scotia and one each from Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I.” (And BC, which gave 20 of its 43 seats to Liberal MP s on April 28, also has 3 of the 10 secretaries of state.)

(2) Introducing all 38 ministers and secretaries of state in four strategic groups

“ … John A. Macdonald regarded the ideal cabinet as one over which he held incriminating documents such as night place each member in the penitentiary.” (HAROLD INNIS, 1948)

What follows just lists each minister or secretary of state once — the first time they become relevant in the list’s four strategic groups. In the real world some individuals will inevitably be involved in more than one group, as it were. (Eg Ms Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is obviously involved in Group III as well as Group I.) These groups have no practical meaning in the Ottawa real world of course. They just reflect my own mere voter’s sense of main policy objectives the new government is pursuing.

I am also especially impressed by Mr. Carney’s declaration: “We’ve been elected to do a job and we intend to do it quickly and forcefully’.” And, while recognizing most of the many very real difficulties, I personally hope that is more or less exactly what happens over the next few years.

Meanwhile, here is : “May 13, 2025 … Ottawa, Ontario … Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced the members of Canada’s new Ministry …”

I. CANADA-US TRADE (“Anand, Champagne, LeBlanc, McGuinty and Anandasangaree will all play a role in managing Canada-U.S. relations” — CBC News)

• 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
• Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs
• François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue
• David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
  Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State (Defence Procurement)
• Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety
  Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)

II. ONE CANADIAN ECONOMY

• Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Transport and Internal Trade
• Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Region
• Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources
• Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
  Nathalie Provost, Secretary of State (Nature)
• Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada
• Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario
  John Zerucelli, Secretary of State (Labour)

III. DIVERSIFYING INTERNATIONAL TRADE, STRENGTHENING MILITARY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, DEVELOPING THE ARCTIC FRONTIER

• Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade
  Randeep Sarai, Secretary of State (International Development)
• Jill McKnight, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence
• Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience and Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada
• Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs and Minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

IV. MANAGING THE GOVERNMENT IN OTTAWA

• Shafqat Ali, President of the Treasury Board
  Wayne Long, Secretary of State (Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions)
• Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
• Steven MacKinnon, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
• Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
• Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages
• Rebecca Alty, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations
• Mandy Gull-Masty, Minister of Indigenous Services
• Heath MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
  Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development)
• Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries
• Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health
• Rechie Valdez, Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism)
  Anna Gainey, Secretary of State (Children and Youth)
  Stephanie McLean, Secretary of State (Seniors)
  Adam van Koeverden, Secretary of State (Sport)

And finally, in the same group IV box but with something of a particular forward-looking vibration, bringing prospects of welcome change even to the ordinary life of the complex federal bureaucracy in Ottawa :

• Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement
• Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario