Is Mark Carney’s cabinet 'transformational'? Does anyone care?

For Mark Carney and the members of his team, it was a big day. On Tuesday, ministers were sworn in at Rideau Hall to a trimmed down and reorganized cabinet, with 28 full members and 10 second-tier members, known as secretaries of state. 

Each prime minister likes to put their own mark on their ministry to distinguish themselves from their predecessors. It’s spring! Renewal! Really, it’s a kind of ornate — substantive if we’re lucky — way of redecorating. Will anybody outside Ottawa or the small clique of political media watchers care? Maybe. Sort of. But not really.

As Carney walked into Rideau Hall, a reporter shouted at him “Lots of changes, eh?” which must have felt like a victory in itself: the government wants to signal that it’s new and different, not a mere holdover from the Justin Trudeau years. The 2015 precedent of a gender-balanced cabinet remains, but the faces have changed, mostly. Many ministers from the Trudeau era are gone. At national defence, Bill Blair is out. Natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson is gone. Carney leadership rival Karina Gould is also gone. Ditto Ahmed Hussen, Jenna Sudds, and Nathaniel Esrkine Smith. The cabinet features 13 new members of Parliament. Eleven ministers from Carney’s first, short-lived cabinet, unveiled in March, are off to the backbench. 

Some Trudeau stalwarts remain, leading critics to say it’s the same old government, which is untrue. Dominic LeBlanc, a competent fixer and all-purpose leader, remains, heading US-Canada trade and intergovernmental affairs. François-Philippe Champagne is still finance minister. Chrystia Freeland, also a Carney leadership rival and the woman who set this whole affair off by knifing Trudeau last December, is transport minister. Mélanie Joly and Anita Anand have swapped jobs, the former heading to the industry ministry and the latter to foreign affairs.

For those of us who treat cabinet swearing-in ceremonies, and the speculation, prognostication, and hot takes that accompany them, as melodrama, this is all a big deal. It’s like the Oscars for people with a vitamin D deficiency. Pundits will fight over whether this new cabinet is new enough: there are unfamiliar names, there are some familiar names. For the most part, those questions will be decided by one’s priors: whether they liked Trudeau, whether they like Carney, how they feel about the particular ministers who are in, or the would-be ministers who’ve been left out.

But most Canadians just want their problems solved. Housing is too expensive. Prices are too high. They don’t make enough money. The oceans are boiling and the ice caps are melting. They think a secretary of state is someone who gets coffee for the governor in Michigan. 

As the cabinet was announced, pollster David Coletto of Abacus Data shared some research his firm carried out in 2024. He found that the vast majority of Canadians had no idea who top cabinet ministers were. Couldn’t even pick them out of a lineup. While 98 per cent of Canadians could name Justin Trudeau and 66 per cent could name Pierre Poilievre, the most recognizable cabinet minister was Chrystia Freeland at 39 per cent, followed by Mélanie Joly at 20 per cent. The numbers kept dropping from there. Only 4 per cent could name Dominc Leblanc. Of course, at the time, only 7 per cent could name Mark Carney. (That number is probably higher today.)

Regardless of who can name whom, most Canadians don’t know or care about much beyond how they are faring in their day-to-day lives, how they feel at their workplace or in their community, what they feel when they check their bank balance. The work of sorting out the details is utterly critical, but it’s background noise for normal people. 

What should we make of the details, though? That Canada now has a minister for artificial intelligence, former broadcaster and political newcomer Evan Solomon, could be a sign the government is taking digital transformation seriously. It could also end up being meaningless, or worse. Gregor Robertson, the former mayor of Vancouver, is now housing minister, which for those who lived in Vancouver during his time at the helm — a 10-year period over which home prices more than doubled — may seem, let’s say, discordant with addressing the problem. The labour ministry has been downgraded to a secretary of state, an ominous demotion. 

By next week, the drama of cabinet day will have died down and we’ll turn to the return of the Commons, the Throne Speech, and the real struggles that will be shaped by cabinet ministers who Canadians don’t know and never will. The focus will be on Carney, a man of tremendous capacity, but one who is about to undertake the most difficult task of his life, and one of the most difficult tasks there is: governing Canada. It’s not obvious this team is up to the task, though they deserve a chance to prove they are. Canadians will judge the results, whether they can name those responsible for them or not.