Parliament Hill’s West Block, the federal Cabinet Room’s current home/Shutterstock

By Neil Bouwer and Gabriel Blanc

May 22, 2025

In the wake of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s second cabinet unveiling on May 13th, the focus of media discussion has been on who will make high-level policy decisions in the Government of Canada. Commentators have paid comparatively little attention to how these decisions will be made.

Canadian cabinet governance is based on the British Westminster system, allowing for democratically elected and prime ministerially selected individuals to collectively make major decisions affecting our country. A well-functioning cabinet system is our form of “good governance” and allocates one of the scarcest resources in Ottawa: ministerial time. It is worth looking at the Prime Minister’s decisions around cabinet governance and how they might impact his term. Carney has kept some things consistent with his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, but has also looked back further into Canadian history for inspiration.

The choice of cabinet committees, for example, signals where ministers will be focusing their time and therefore gives a clear indication of the government’s priorities. Prime Minister Carney has chosen to have two “inner cabinet” committees, namely a Priorities, Planning and Strategy Committee and an Operations and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. These will provide senior ministers with venues to deliberate on the large strategic issues and the overall policy agenda of the government, as well as day-to-day issues management, respectively. Many prime ministers past have relied on these two committees to provide coherence and leadership on major files.

Another, more subtle, means of providing overall leadership and policy coherence is the use of group retreats of full Cabinet. Prime Minister Trudeau used these extensively throughout his tenure, including by having them in locations across the country, inviting high-profile experts into the Cabinet room, and holding media availabilities afterwards. Carney has already convened a two-day cabinet retreat in the form of a “planning forum” at Meech Lake, wrapping up at this writing. With a federal budget now expected in the fall and a minority Parliament to navigate, we can expect him to hold another cabinet retreat sometime over the summer.

There are notable absences among the cabinet committees of this government. Carney has axed the Agenda Results and Communications Committee (known as ARCC), which Trudeau used to drive a “delivery and results” approach, inspired by the “deliverology” developed in the UK by Sir Michael Barber. The Committee allowed Prime Minister Trudeau to monitor progress on the policy agenda: Once a policy commitment was made, a small amount of prime ministerial and cabinet time would be devoted each month to monitoring progress. This approach was somewhat successful in areas where measurement was possible (such as the commitment to eliminate boil water advisories in northern communities) but failed to gain traction more broadly.

Other elements of discontinuity between the Trudeau and Carney cabinet committees are more puzzling. Carney’s victory in the April federal election was in no small part due to confidence in his ability to manage the Canada-U.S relationship. So, it is odd that Prime Minister Carney has dropped the cabinet committee for Canada-US issues that Trudeau had created during the first Trump Administration. The conventional wisdom on his approach to the bilateral relationship is that he will be the point man, but this begs the question as to how to manage broader Canada-US issues, which touch on the portfolios of many — if not all — ministers.

With the drama of cabinet selection front of mind, it is important to remember that process is as important as personnel in determining how successful the government will be in achieving its goals.

On the other hand, the prime minister has created the Secure and Sovereign Canada cabinet committee. This is reminiscent of the traditional Foreign and Defence Committee, but with a clearer focus that reflects the changing national security environment and blatant U.S threats to Canadian sovereignty. Prime Minister Carney also created a Committee for Government Transformation/Government Efficiency. This is a welcome pairing of the drive to improve digital service delivery and reduce government program expenditures. With Minister of Finance François-Philippe Champagne as the Chair, it should be used to drive the review of programs for continued efficiency and effectiveness. Prime Minister Chrétien used this approach as part of his major deficit reduction in the 1990s.

Some omissions are for the better: A welcome change brought in by Prime Minister Carney is the elimination of the two cabinet committees for the Middle Class, named “A” and “B.” The ambiguous mandates of these committees reflected a desire to integrate social, economic, and environmental issues, but created an unhelpful lack of clarity and purpose. Prime Minister Carney has returned to a more conventional and focused structure by replacing these with the Build Canada committee, and the Quality of Life and Well-Being committee. These are reminiscent of the Economic Policy and Social Policy committees of the Harper, Martin and Chrétien Administrations, renamed to reflect the major priorities of today.

When Carney was first sworn in as Prime Minister in the spring, the Prime Minister’s Office published a 2015 document titled “Open and Accountable Government” on the prime minister’s official website. This document outlines the roles of ministers and officials, including an Annex on the Cabinet decision-making system. It was a welcome signal that the Carney government placed emphasis on the integrity of the cabinet decision-making process. This document was adapted from previous governments (for example see the 2002 Guide released by Prime Minister Chrétien), but was finalized and released by Prime Minister Trudeau. Carney could further signal his commitment to transparency with a modest innovation in cabinet governance inspired by best practices in other Westminster-styled democracies: The development and publication of a Cabinet Handbook (as already exists in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia).

Another modest innovation in transparency would be to release the guide to drafting memoranda to cabinet. A drafter’s guide would contain instructions to officials on what kind of information to include in a cabinet submission, as well as key considerations. Previously, these have included cost, environmental impacts, intersectional analyses for gender, age, and race, and other considerations. The drafter’s guide was publicly available for years, but was removed by the Trudeau government.

One area for advanced thinking about cabinet decision-making would be whether Canada could adopt practices from other countries to allow for cabinet ministers from an opposition party to sit in cabinet. Among the features that the UK and New Zealand cabinet manuals include are ways for ministers to break from cabinet solidarity and “agree to disagree,” without interrupting the decision-making process. This might be particularly useful to allow a coalition of support on the issues defining this Administration, without forcing the integration of an opposition cabinet minister into the governing party. In New Zealand, this has resulted in durable and productive relationships between parties, as well as more diverse voices around the cabinet table.

With the drama of cabinet selection front of mind, it is important to remember that process is as important as personnel in determining how successful the government will be in achieving its goals. Carney has made important decisions in this regard. He has taken some of the best innovations of the Trudeau years, without the associated baggage. There have also been some puzzling omissions and, as always, room for improvement in the domain of transparent and accountable government. Prime Minister Carney’s cabinet design shows promise in its focus and efficiency, but its true test will lie in whether its structure can consistently support effective governance over time.

Neil Bouwer is a former Assistant Secretary to Cabinet at the Privy Council Office and currently a Visiting Professor of Practice at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.

Gabriel Blanc is a student at the Max Bell School of Public Policy and the Editor-in-Chief of The Bell Newsletter.