As Prime Minister Mark Carney unveils Canada’s newest cabinet, many will look for the clear signs of change he promised voters.
In the days leading up to the election, a Bay Street friend of mine said it plainly: “Let’s see if Carney can mop up the Liberal party and get it back on track. They don’t deserve my vote. But we always hoped for someone smart from the private sector to throw their hat in the ring — even though he has much better options professionally.”
That sentiment is shared by many Canadians who have come to value competence over charisma, delivery over drama. It speaks to a quiet but growing hope: that Mark Carney will bring to Ottawa not just economic credibility, but operational discipline.
The new Liberal cabinet is replete with fresh faces — and some familiar ones — and designed to focus on the U.S. trade crisis.
All signs suggest his cabinet will resemble something more familiar to the corporate world: a senior leadership team. That’s not just branding. It reflects a deliberate design choice: a modernized operating structure intended to accelerate decision-making, sharpen accountability and deliver results.
Carney is a technocrat with a PhD in economics and a career that spans Goldman Sachs and the governorships of two G7 central banks. He has spent his professional life surrounded by policy wonks, analysts and operators trained to measure impact in quarters, not mandates.
And while politics can’t be reduced to key performance indicators, Canadians are in no mood for performative government. A decade of Justin Trudeau and external threats will do that. They want competence. They want delivery.
Which brings us back to structure and composition.
We’ve heard early indications that Carney may be exploring a tiered cabinet model, much like the one used in the United Kingdom. That would mean a tightly knit core of senior ministers responsible for high-priority files — trade, climate, affordability, housing, national unity — supported by a second layer of ministers of state or junior ministers tasked with managing the important but less urgent day-to-day machinery of government.
To some, this might seem like a dangerous importation of corporate thinking into democratic governance, but Canadians increasingly expect their governments to work like high-performing organizations. With minimal bureaucracy. With clarity of purpose.
And crucially, this type of model also allows for something the system often struggles with: focus. The traditional Canadian cabinet is large, designed to satisfy regional, linguistic, gender, and ethnic representation. Symbolically important? Absolutely. Operationally effective? Not so much. Decisions made by consensus can devolve into decisions made by inertia. In a complex, fast-moving, and unpredictable world — thanks in part to Donald Trump — that’s no longer good enough.
Prime Minister Mark Carney named 28 ministers and 10 secretaries of state to a cabinet he says will focus on defining a new relationship with the United States and building up domestic Canadian trade. He also says his government will work to bring down the cost of living and make communities more safe. (May 13, 2025 / The Canadian Press)
Carney’s approach, if implemented, could offer a welcome recalibration. Not a rejection of representative government, but a model where mission-critical files have dedicated champions. Where leadership isn’t diffused across a bloated table but concentrated where it needs to be — in the hands of those who are willing to own the outcome.
Of course, a cabinet-as-senior-leadership-team will only work if the people around the table aren’t just symbolic appointments or political lifers, but individuals with domain expertise and a bias for results. That will require Carney to resist the age-old temptation to reward loyalty over capability. It means vetting not only for alignment, but for skill.
Canadians should pay close attention to who makes the cut and why. Because in any leadership team, talent density matters.
To be clear, running a country isn’t like running a company. But it shouldn’t feel like running in circles either. Canadians want to see that the government can do big things on time, on budget and with purpose.
This will hopefully be the promise of Carney’s cabinet, or perhaps more accurately, his senior leadership team.
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation