Carney’s ministry includes 24 new people — and 13 of them were just elected.
Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a major overhaul of his cabinet Tuesday as he looks to remake the Liberals in his image and turn the page on the last government.
Carney’s new ministry, which includes 28 cabinet ministers and 10 secretaries of state
from every province and the North, includes some old hands but is largely composed of new faces who have either never sat in cabinet before or were just elected to the House of Commons late last month.
In total, Carney has hand-picked 24 new people — 13 of them just elected — to serve as full cabinet ministers or secretaries of state, a long-dormant ministerial designation Carney is reviving. Speaking to reporters after the swearing-in ceremony, Carney pitched the cabinet overhaul as a nod to Canadians’ desire for change after nearly 10 years under his predecessor, former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
“Our government will deliver its mandate for change with urgency and determination. We’re going to deliver on that mandate with a new team, purpose-built for this hinge moment in Canada’s history,” he said, noting half the ministry is new and will come to the table with “fresh perspectives.”
“That’s a tremendous amount of change,” he said. “Half and half — for me, it’s perfect.” He said this smaller, “more focused” cabinet will “operate with a commitment to true cabinet government,” with ministers empowered to make decisions without going to the Prime Minister’s Office for approval at every turn.
Carney said this structure will help the government deliver on its ambitious agenda — which includes, he reiterated today, getting a new trade deal with the U.S., boosting a sluggish economy by dismantling internal trade barriers, pushing through a middle-class tax cut by Canada Day to address affordability concerns, speeding up home construction, reining in crime and building major infrastructure projects of “national significance.” ”We’ve been elected to do a job and we intend to do it quickly and forcefully,” Carney said. “We have to address this crisis with the Americans and we have to address the very real challenges with our economy and we will do just that.”
Source: cbc.ca/news/politics
