Wednesday May 21, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS [Reporting from VICTORIA, BC] | Posted at 6 pm PT [Updated 7:25 pm]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Prime Minister Mark Carney today announced the content of a mandate letter that he has issued to his full cabinet.
There are 28 cabinet ministers as well as 10 secretaries of state. He addressed them as colleagues, setting a team approach further in motion.
As announced to media in Ottawa, Carney said the list is short, highlighting these four points in his verbal remarks to media:
- Building the strongest economy in the G7, an economy that works for everyone.
- Bringing down the cost of living
- Strengthening a secure country with safe communities
- A new economic and security relationship with the United States and partnerships with reliable allies around the world.
But certainly those four points have broad-reaching work to be done and big goals to achieve.
Seven priorities:
The May 21, 2025 mandate letter content says Carney’s cabinet will focus on seven priorities:
- Establishing a new economic and security relationship with the United States and strengthening our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world.
- Building one Canadian economy by removing barriers to interprovincial trade and identifying and expediting nation-building projects that will connect and transform our country.
- Bringing down costs for Canadians and helping them to get ahead.
- Making housing more affordable by unleashing the power of public-private cooperation, catalysing a modern housing industry, and creating new careers in the skilled trades.
- Protecting Canadian sovereignty and keeping Canadians safe by strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces, securing our borders, and reinforcing law enforcement.
- Attracting the best talent in the world to help build our economy, while returning our overall immigration rates to sustainable levels.
- Spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in the people and businesses that will build the strongest economy in the G7.
This is an all-of-cabinet approach that gives cabinet ministers room to come forward with their own ideas compared to the Trudeau government approach where each cabinet minister was given specific marching orders.
While Carney’s approach might seem broad minded and showing confidence in his ministers to lead by their own initiative, it also very likely speaks to how overloaded this starting phase of Carney’s role as prime minister has been (i.e. he or his staff may not have had time to script all manner of letters).
And possibly it also highlights that for Carney it comes down to ‘getting things done’ through a business-like process instead of prescribing through political objectives the work of his ministers.
Delivering major changes:
“We discussed how we can best deliver the major changes that are needed to overcome the many challenges that Canada currently faces,” said Carney in his opening remarks.
In a more dangerous and divided world, geopolitical risks are rising, threatening our sovereignty.
The global trading system which has helped power Canada’s prosperity for decades is undergoing its biggest transformation since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
At home our longstanding weak productivity is making life less affordable for Canadian families, it’s straining government finances and threatening to undermine the sustainability of vital social programs on which Canadians rely.
“My government is fighting to get the best deal for Canada,” said Carney about workers in sectors being impacted by tariffs. “We will take all the time necessary but not more, to do so,” said Carney.
“And in parallel we are strengthening our relationships with reliable trading partners and allies,” he said in his prepared remarks today.
“Canada has what the world needs and the values the world respects,” said Carney about the broader reasons that he believes will make his strategy work.
New strategies and determined execution:
So Canada’s new government has an immense responsibility to address these challenges head on with focus, new strategies and determined execution.
“And that new approach animates the mandate letter that I shared with all members of our ministry at the end of our meeting. It reflects a unified mission. This one letter outlines the core priorities of Canad’s new government reflecting the mandate that Canadians have given to us,” said Carney.
“In particular the government is charged to build the strongest economy in the G7, an economy that works for everyone.”
“We’re to bring down the cost of living for Canadian families. To keep our country secure and our communities safe. To develop a new economic and security relationship with the United States and to build new partnership with reliable allies around the world,” the prime minister said.
“Our team is already acting on this mandate with urgency and determination,” said Carney today.
Relations with the US:
Carney today went on to say that he had met with US Vice President JD Vance while in Rome for the Pope’s inaugural mass. Carney says he reiterated “what workers and businesses on both sides of the border have long known — that Canada and the United States are stronger when we work together”.
He also mentioned that Canada will consider being part of the ‘Golden Dome’ that US President Trump announced as a large defence project that would protect the skies of all of North America. The defence system would be a much larger version of the ‘Iron Dome’ that protects Israeil from incoming missiles.
In Washington and Banff:
Carney outlined what some of his ministers are already doing with regard to the mandated priorities:
- Dominic LeBlanc, Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy, is currently in Washington to continue negotiations with members of President Trump’s cabinet.
- François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue is meeting with his American counterpart as he leads the G7 finance ministers meeting in Banff.
“My ministerial team was built for this critical time in this country’s history, to bring about the changes Canadians deserve so that each one has the ability and the responsibility to show leadership, to bring forward new ideas and to act with determination,” said Carney today (translated from his remarks in French).
Carney said that “the next few weeks and month will be crucial to catalyze the changes that Canadians deserve,” he concluded on that note.
Carney then reminded media that the King Charles III will deliver the Speech from the Throne on May 27. The speech will outline the government’s plan to build “Canada Strong”.
Carney’s action timeline as he listed off today:
- June 2: Carney will chair a major first ministers meeting in Saskatoon to strengthen the partnerships that are needed to build one Canadian economy out of 13 and to catalyze the significant nation-building projects that will diversity and strengthen our economy.
- June 15 to 17: Carney will host the G7 and other world leaders in Alberta, to address global challenges ranging from energy security to the future of the new global commercial trading system.
- By July 1: all remaining federal trade barriers to internal trade will be gone, said Carney.
- Fall 2025: Budget 2025 will be delivered, based on a “clear fiscal outlook shaped by a higher degree of confidence in the prospective efficiencies and cost savings across government”, said Carney. “The government will spend less on operations so that Canadians can spend more to build a stronger economy. Government must become more productive.” The focus will be on “results over spending” and “using scarce tax dollars to catalyze multiples of private investment”.
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