Who’s who on Mark Carney’s 2025 Liberal campaign team
The Liberals and Prime Minister Mark Carney have assembled a national campaign team with plenty of political experience between them.
Marci Surkes, a former cabinet chief of staff and one-time head of policy in then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s office, said the absence of many former senior advisers to Trudeau, and the “number of new faces at the staffing level around Mr. Carney” is something she “noticed immediately” about the Carney campaign team.
“In spite of some of the criticism from political opponents pointing to, obviously, some continuity within the caucus and the ministry in particular, there are a number of staff changes—particularly at the senior level—that are quite evident, and Mr. Trudeau’s senior team is now no longer in the picture,” said Surkes, managing director and chief strategy officer at Compass Rose.
Zita Astravas, another former cabinet chief of staff and ex-director of issues management in Trudeau’s PMO who’s played senior roles on past campaigns, said the 2025 team brings a “broad depth” of local, provincial, and federal campaign experience.
“They really have pulled together a really seasoned campaign team, and you see that from how quickly they’ve been able to go from a leadership campaign to launching a national campaign that has already visited, in the past couple of days, several regions of the country,” said Astravas, who’s now a vice-president at Wellington Advocacy.
The Hill Times spoke with multiple sources to compile and confirm the names of key members of the 2025 national Liberal campaign team.
Absent from the senior campaign ranks this year are Trudeau stalwarts like Katie Telford, who ran Trudeau’s office as prime minister throughout his more than nine-year tenure and played senior roles on the Liberals’ last three election campaigns, including as national campaign director in 2015.
Jeremy Broadhurst, a former deputy chief of staff and principal secretary in Trudeau’s PMO who ran the Liberals’ 2019 campaign, was originally lined up to once again serve as national campaign director, but he resigned this past September.
Trudeau subsequently tapped Andrew Bevan to take over as campaign director. Bevan left his post as chief of staff to then-deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland—who is running for re-election in University–Rosedale, Ont.—last October to take on the job.
Bevan had been running Freeland’s office since October 2023, and before then was vice-president of Canadian Pathway and executive vice-president of the Fakih Group. A former chief of staff to then-federal infrastructure minister John Godfrey and then-Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, Bevan has also been principal secretary and chief of staff to then-Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne.
Alongside Bevan’s appointment, then-PMO deputy chief of staff Marjorie Michel was named deputy campaign director. However, Michel, who had been working for Trudeau cabinet ministers since 2016 and in the PMO since 2021, has since exited to instead run to succeed Trudeau as the Liberal candidate in Papineau, Que.
With Carney’s ascension to the party helm last month, some new faces have been added at the top-most level of the campaign, with Data Sciences CEO Tom Pitfield now executive campaign director and chief strategist.
Chairman and co-founder of Canada 2020, Pitfield previously worked for former Liberal senator Jack Austin during his time as then-government leader in the Senate. Though Pitfield never worked in Trudeau’s PMO, he played a senior role on Trudeau’s 2012 leadership campaign, and is a longtime friend of the now-former Liberal leader.
Data Sciences is contracted by the Liberal Party to manage its membership database and voter-outreach software.
Pitfield oversaw digital operations for the party during the last three elections fought under Trudeau. He is also husband to former party president Anna Gainey, who’s seeking re-election as the MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount, Que.
Bevan remains on board as a national campaign co-director, now working closely with fellow campaign co-directors Braeden Caley, who also serves as a senior adviser, and Andrée-Lyne Hallé, who The Hill Times understands has a focus on Quebec.
Caley ran Carney’s successful leadership campaign, and has been president and CEO of Canada 2020 for the last almost three years. He previously spent six years—between 2016 and 2022—leading communications for the federal Liberal Party. Among other things, Caley is also a former press secretary and later director of policy and communications to then-Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, who’s running as the Liberal candidate in Vancouver Fraserview-South Burnaby, B.C., this spring.
Hallé is a former director in Trudeau’s PMO, but has been off the Hill since 2022, and working for transportation equipment manufacturing company Alstom—most recently as director of Quebec public affairs, media relations, and communications—since 2023. A former Quebec Liberal staffer, Hallé started as a PMO press secretary in 2015, working her way up to director of outreach before leaving after the 2019 election to spend a year as deputy chief of staff and director of operations to Freeland as deputy PM and finance minister. Hallé returned to the PMO in late 2020, staying on for another almost two years before exiting as a strategic adviser.
Former Liberal MP Marco Mendicino, who recently became chief of staff to Carney, has stayed behind to run the PMO, which—like other cabinet offices—continues to operate with a skeleton crew.
The Liberals have a fleet of deputy campaign directors, including Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers, who held the same title on Carney’s leadership bid.
Des Rosiers was most recently working as a tour advance in Trudeau’s PMO since October 2023 after almost three years away working in the private sector, including as director with consulting firm Will & Way. She ran Gainey’s successful 2023 byelection campaign, and was an advance for Trudeau’s leader’s tour during the 2015 and 2019 elections. Between the end of 2015 and end of 2019, Des Rosiers worked in various roles for the government, starting as a special assistant for Quebec to then-infrastructure minister Amarjeet Sohi, and ending as director of communications to then-fisheries minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Sohi has returned to the Liberal candidate fold, taking a leave from his role as Edmonton mayor to run in Edmonton Southeast, Alta., while Wilkinson looks to hold is seat in the renamed riding of North Vancouver–Capilano, B.C.
Jamie Kippen is deputy campaign director for national field work. He was a key Ontario organizer during the 2015 and 2019 federal elections, and in 2021, left his post as chief of staff to then-diversity, inclusion, and youth minister Bardish Chagger—running for re-election in Waterloo, Ont.—to become senior director of election readiness at Liberal Party headquarters ahead of that year’s federal election. Kippen worked as one of two Ontario regional affairs advisers in Trudeau’s PMO between 2016 and 2019, and went on to also serve as chief of staff to then-health minister Jean-Yves Duclos, who is running again in Québec, Que. Up until last September, he was chief of staff to then-environment and climate change minister Steven Guilbeault, looking to be re-elected in Laurier–Sainte-Marie, Que.
Overseeing tour organization from campaign headquarters in Ottawa is deputy campaign manager Mike Maka.
A former Ontario Liberal staffer, Maka worked in the PMO communications and planning unit supporting Trudeau between 2016 and 2018, ending as senior planning manager. Maka went on to become operations and planning director, and later chief of staff to Duclos as then-families minister, and has since also run the offices of then-transport minister Omar Alghabra, then-immigration minister Sean Fraser (briefly), and most recently then-international development minister Ahmed Hussen. At Queen’s Park, Maka’s senior-most roles included advising then-Ontario government services minister Harinder Takhar, and then-municipal affairs and housing minister Linda Jeffrey. Fraser is recontesting his seat in Central Nova, N.S., while Hussen is running again in the renamed York South–Weston–Etobicoke, Ont.
Another former cabinet chief of staff, Dunerci Caceres, is deputy campaign manager for planning and executive. Caceres, who started working for the Trudeau government as executive assistant to PMO senior advisers in 2017, most recently ran then-women and gender equality minister Marci Ien’s office.
Sean Wiltshire, senior vice-president of solutions at Data Sciences, is deputy campaign manager for insights. Wiltshire’s been with Data Sciences since late 2016, and before then was director of analytics for the Liberal Party.
Parker Lund is deputy campaign manager for communications, while Jane Deeks is deputy campaign manager for digital.
Lund has been director of communications for the Liberal Party since 2022, and is a former lead writer in Trudeau’s PMO. He oversaw communications products as a director with the party’s 2021 campaign, and worked on communications during the 2019 election. A party communications adviser between 2018 and 2020, he’s also got experience working for MPs on the Hill.
Deeks was named director of communications in Carney’s PMO in the short span between his March 9 leadership win and the March 23 election call, and is a former director of digital strategy to Trudeau. An assistant to then-longtime Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett between 2015 and 2018, Deeks’ first cabinet role was as press secretary to Bennett as then-Crown-Indigenous relations minister. Her past roles since include as communications director to then-fisheries minister Carla Qualtrough and then-labour minister Seamus O’Regan, and as deputy chief of staff and communications director to O’Regan as then-labour and seniors minister.
Azam Ishamel, who was the Liberals’ 2021 campaign director, continues as national director of the federal party—as he’s been since 2017—and as such has been another key player shaping this year’s campaign.
Former Privy Council clerk Janice Charette is a senior adviser for the Liberal campaign. A longtime federal public servant, Charette led the Privy Council Office from 2014 to 2016—supporting then-PM Stephen Harper—and again from 2021 until her retirement (from the public service, at least) in 2023. In between those terms, she served as Canadian high commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Sources who spoke with The Hill Times confirmed their understanding that former Trudeau principal secretary Gerald Butts is also in the mix to some degree advising the 2025 campaign team.
Former Liberal cabinet minister Scott Brison was spotted boarding the Liberal bus after attending a recent visit to Carney’s local campaign office in Nepean, Ont.
Christina Topp is a senior adviser for fundraising during the writ. A former vice-president with WWF-Canada, Topp served as the party’s interim national director after the 2015 election, and was its senior director of fundraising between 2013 and 2019. Since the 2019 election, she’s been a vice-president of marketing and community engagement for the Sunnybrook Foundation.
Jeff Costen is tackling issues management work for the campaign.
Costen was part of Carney’s recent leadership campaign team, and has been working for Navigator in Toronto since 2017. Costen previously spent a number of years working for the Liberals in Ontario, including as an issues manager to then-Ontario government and consumer services minister David Orazietti, communications adviser to then-associate health and long-term care minister Dipika Damerla, and press secretary to then-tourism, culture, and sport minister Eleanor McMahon.
Among those helping update the policy platform handed over by Liberal MP Mona Fortier—running again in Ottawa–Vanier–Gloucester, Ont.—and her team is Jonathan Barry.
Barry ran Energy and Natural Resources Minister Wilkinson’s successful 2015 campaign, and subsequently landed a job as a correspondence writer in Trudeau’s PMO. In 2017, Barry joined then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s office as a Western regional affairs adviser, later becoming operations director. He’s been working off the Hill since the 2021 election, most recently as an AI governance fellow with Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, through which he worked on the 2025 International AI Safety Report. According to Barry’s LinkedIn profile, he’s currently wrapping up a master’s degree in public affairs at Princeton University.
A number of spokespeople are on hand with the Liberal campaign.
On the road are Audrey Champoux, who worked on Carney’s leadership team and subsequently joined his PMO as lead press secretary; and Ann-Clara Vaillancourt, who’s an example of a former senior Trudeau adviser on the campaign.
A former Quebec Liberal staffer, Vaillancourt started working for the Trudeau government in 2018, and joined the PMO as a press secretary in 2020. Most recently, she was director of media relations in Trudeau’s office.
Champoux was previously director of communications to then-innovation minister François-Philippe Champagne, who is running again in Saint-Maurice–Champlain, Que. A cabinet staffer since 2022, she’s also a past press secretary to Mendicino as then-public safety minister.
Working from Ottawa are spokespeople Kevin Lemkay, Emelyana Titarenko, Guillaume Bertrand, Isabella Orozco-Madison, Mohammad Hussain, Carolyn Svonkin, and Jean-Christophe Armstrong—all but one of whom were until recently filling communications roles in cabinet offices. Armstrong, who started on the Hill last October as press secretary to then-tourism minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada, was a press secretary on Carney’s leadership campaign and subsequently joined his PMO.
Lemkay, a one-time issues adviser in Trudeau’s PMO, was most recently director of communications to then-rural economic development minister Gudie Hutchings, reoffering in Long Range Mountains, N.L. Titarenko was last director of communications to Ien. Bertrand was most recently director of communications to Duclos as then-public services minister. Orozco-Madison has been tackling communications for Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly—running again in Ahuntisic–Cartierville, Que.—since the fall of 2023, most recently as deputy director. Hussain, who was press secretary to Trudeau between 2023 and 2024, was last director of communications to Martinez Ferrada; and Svonkin was most recently director of issues management to Wilkinson as energy and natural resources minister.
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