Steven Guilbeault to remain in cabinet: source

That would mean doing some more surgery to the cabinet, which Carney initially whittled down to 23 from 39 in the final cabinet under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

A government official, who was not authorized to speak about the appointments before they’re made public, says the cabinet will include a representative from every province and a representative from the North.

But Guilbeault, the former climate activist who proved a contentious environment minister among prairie premiers when he served in that role between 2021 and 2025, will stay in cabinet largely in the same role he was given on March 14. 

That includes being responsible for biodiversity, nature and Parks Canada. Guilbeault was also the culture minister and Carney’s Quebec lieutenant.

The Liberal source who confirmed Guilbeault’s inclusion in cabinet is not being identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter before the official announcement is made at Rideau Hall Tuesday morning.

The term secretaries of state was first coined by Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien in 1993, as a way of keeping a larger group of people happy without causing cabinet to bloat.

He included them throughout his three terms in office, but only former prime minister Stephen Harper used the term since, and then only briefly.

Secretaries of state are effectively junior ministers with a lower salary, smaller office budgets, fewer staff and fewer statutory authorities. The current pay scale shows full cabinet ministers make an additional $99,900 on top of their MP salary of $209,800. Secretaries of state are set to earn $74,700 on top of their MP salary.

Ministers of state have been used more commonly, but since about 2015, the pay scale for ministers of state was increased to match that of full cabinet ministers.

The PMO official said secretaries of state will be invited to cabinet and cabinet committee meetings but only those related to their portfolio.

Carney dropped a number of ministers in his first cabinet named on March 14, and added three new faces then. The one role he has to fill is the health minister, after the Liberal incumbent who last held the role, Kamal Khera, was defeated in her Brampton riding during last month’s election.

After his first cabinet was announced on March 14, Carney was criticized for consolidating some of the smaller ministerial roles into one larger portfolio, including women, labour, youth, official languages, diversity, persons with disabilities and seniors.

A leaner cabinet will appeal to some business leaders and insiders who said Carney can underscore his seriousness about being laser-focused on the economy and running a more business-friendly government by assembling a smaller team.

“Hopefully we’ll treat this cabinet a bit like an executive committee in the sense that we want to empower them to run with files and be accountable for files, but that it will be clear what the priorities are for the government,” Robert Asselin, senior vice president of policy at the Business Council of Canada.

Canada’s business community will also be watching Tuesday’s cabinet shuffle closely for signs that Carney will be easier to work with than the last Liberal government. 

Business leaders hope the new prime minister will show signs he’ll be true to his word on focusing on the economy and launch nation-building projects. 

They also say they want the new prime minister to use his cabinet lineup to show Western Canada he is ready for a reset in federal-provincial relations that grew testy under Trudeau.

Matthew Holmes, head of public policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the community will parse the energy and environment appointments closely following Carney’s ovations about supporting the energy sector and working collaboratively with Western provinces.

“The signal that’s sent with environment will be hyper-scrutinized, and so I think the government and the prime minister needs to be careful on what tone is being sent there,” Holmes said. “That’s a real minefield.”

Asselin also said he’ll be looking to see if Carney can hit the reset button on the key files of energy and environment.

“New faces are required, frankly, and people that will reset the tone and the relationships with provinces, but also with the energy sector,” he said. “That’s an important test.”

Corporate Canada long felt it lacked an ally in the previous government under Trudeau, which was focused on its social agenda overgrowth and Canada’s lagging productivity.

Holmes said the business community has been sounding the alarm for many years about Canada’s struggles to get major infrastructure projects built — a problem that’s coming to a head now due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade aggression.

“Those sorts of big things that have long tails for the economy, those have been really mired in a slow, sclerotic type of process with lots of redundancy, or argument between the federal government and provincial governments, a lot of opacity or process issues that don’t allow the business community to move quickly,” Holmes said.

Gary Mar, president of the Canada West Foundation, said that while Canadians are facing an external threat, there are also deep divisions in large parts of Western Canada and elsewhere that the election laid bare. 

“If you look at where the Liberal Party nearly got zeroed out, it would include Alberta and Saskatchewan, large parts of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario — in places where there’s primary industries like agriculture and natural resource development,” he said. 

“What I’ll be really keen to see in the construction of his cabinet, is whether there’s a bridge building exercise that learns from previous mistakes that have been made by the Liberal government in the last 10 years.”

Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa, said the prime minister will have to address a very real source tension as he names his cabinet as he reaches to signal his government will be a change from the last Liberal government under Trudeau.

“He’s going to have to put a fresh face on the government but keep people who were highly competent around,” Hampson said.

Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly have been the main interlocutors with key figures in the Trump administration, such as U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The government is expected to launch a packed legislative agenda when Parliament returns in two weeks — one that includes a tax cut and attempts to eliminate internal trade barriers. It also has to prepare for some major international diplomatic events that are just around the corner.

The next defence minister will be explaining the pace of Canada’s defence spending at the NATO summit in The Hague in June. That same month, Canada hosts the G7 summit in Kananaskis.

Holmes said Carney’s choice for the defence portfolio could prove to be a “sleeper” decision on Tuesday, given the importance of selling the message that Canada is getting serious about its NATO commitments.

“It’ll probably be overlooked in picking the bones after everything’s revealed, but that one can come back to bite us if that selection isn’t done carefully,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2025.