New Carney Liberal Cabinet puts many lawyers on front benches in critical federal leadership roles

Law360 Canada (May 13, 2025, 5:29 PM EDT) -- Lawyers who were key Cabinet members in Justin Trudeau’s erstwhile minority Liberal government have assumed dominant roles in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new 29-member Liberal Cabinet, including Finance and National Revenue Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Justice Minister Sean Fraser, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, Defence Minister David McGuinty and Dominic LeBlanc, the minister for the new portfolio for Canada-U.S. trade, intergovernmental affairs and “One Canadian Economy.”

Following a swearing-in ceremony at Government House (Rideau Hall) in Ottawa on May 13, 2025, Carney told Hill reporters he is proud that half of his gender-balanced Cabinet is made up of experienced ministers while the rest are newcomers to their federal leadership posts. “Canadians voted for change, and part of it is bringing in those new perspectives,” he said.

“We will govern as a Cabinet constructively and collaboratively, working with caucus and across parties in Parliament to deliver the change that Canadians want and desire,” pledged the prime minister, an economist who was formerly the governor of the U.K. and Canadian central banks.

“Our new government will be a strong and reliable partner to the provinces, the territories and to Indigenous peoples,” Carney said. “We will reinforce bridges across labour, business and civil society and, together, we will advance the nation, building investments that will support the core mission of this government, which is to create the strongest economy in the G7 — an economy that works for everyone.”

Fourteen of the 29 ministers are new to Cabinet, including: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Lena Metlege Diab, the Halifax lawyer who was formerly Nova Scotia’s justice and immigration minister; Toronto lawyer Julie Dabrusin, who was sworn in as the minister of environment and climate change; Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement Joël Lightbound, who formerly practised as an immigration lawyer in the province of Quebec; and Edmonton lawyer Eleanor Olszewski, who is the minister of emergency management and community resilience and minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada.

Carney’s new leadership team also comprises 10 “secretaries of state”—MPs who don’t head federal departments but are mandated to address specific Liberal election platform priorities such as “combatting crime,” a task the prime minister handed to Brampton, Ont., MP Ruby Sahota, a former member of the Trudeau Cabinet who previously practised law in the United States.  

Key ministers that kept their roles in Carney’s previous brief caretaker Cabinet include Champagne as finance minister (he also was sworn in as minister of national revenue), and Minister of Transport and Internal Trade Chrystia Freeland, who had been Canada’s finance minister and deputy prime minister before she quit Trudeau’s Cabinet last year.

High-profile MPs dropped in Carney’s second Cabinet include Bill Blair, who had been defence minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, the former minister of energy and natural resources, and ex-Treasury Board president Ginette Petitpas Taylor.

Here is the full list of Cabinet members:

• Shafqat Ali, President of the Treasury Board
• Rebecca Alty, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations
• Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety
• Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs and Minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency
• François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue
• Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
• Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
• Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Transport and Internal Trade
• Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages
• Mandy Gull-Masty, Minister of Indigenous Services
• Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario
• Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources
• Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions
• 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
• Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement
• Heath MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
• Steven MacKinnon, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
• David McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
• Jill McKnight, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence
• Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
• Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health
• Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience and Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada
• Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada
• Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade
• Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
• Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries
• Rechie Valdez, Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism)

Here is the full list of secretaries of state:

• Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development)
• Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State (Defence Procurement)
• Anna Gainey, Secretary of State (Children and Youth)
• Wayne Long, Secretary of State (Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions)
• Stephanie McLean, Secretary of State (Seniors)
• Nathalie Provost, Secretary of State (Nature)
• Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)
• Randeep Sarai, Secretary of State (International Development)
• Adam van Koeverden, Secretary of State (Sport)

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