Hill Climbers
A baker’s dozen of staff currently in place in Minister Gull-Masty’s office
Since hiring her chief of staff in June, Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty has added a further dozen staffers to her ministerial team to date, including senior legal and policy adviser Andrea Yellow Horn.
As previously reported by Hill Climbers, Tania Monaghan is chief of staff to Gull-Masty.
Yellow Horn has returned to the Hill to work for Gull-Masty after almost three years away. A member of the Piikani Nation in Alberta, she previously worked as a senior regional affairs adviser for the Prairies to then-Crown-Indigenous relations minister Marc Miller between the fall of 2020 and August 2022, when she exited to study law at the University of Calgary. According to her LinkedIn profile, Yellow Horn graduated with a juris doctor earlier this year. For roughly the last two years, she’s been working part time as a special projects co-ordinator with the Blackfoot Confederacy Tribal Council.
Yellow Horn worked for the Blackfoot Confederacy prior to her time in Miller’s office, and before then spent almost three-and-a-half years working for the then-NDP Alberta government, including time spent as a stakeholder relations manager in then-premier Rachel Notley’s office.
Supporting Monaghan in leading Gull-Masty’s office is deputy chief of staff and director of policy and litigation Julia Carbone.
Carbone previously spent years working for Miller, starting in his constituency office as the MP for Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Soeurs, Que., in 2017. She joined the Hill’s exempt staff ranks in 2020 when she was hired as a policy and legal affairs adviser in Miller’s office as then-Indigenous services minister. Prior to working in Miller’s riding office, Carbone was a legal counsel with Futurion Inc. She’s also a past law clerk with the Federal Court of Appeal, and a former course lecturer—with a focus on intellectual and industry property—with McGill University’s Faculty of Law.
Carbone followed Miller to the Crown-Indigenous relations portfolio after the 2021 federal election, and in 2023 was promoted to director of policy. Not long after her promotion, Miller was shuffled into the immigration portfolio, with Carbone subsequently following, becoming director of policy and legal affairs. Early this year, Carbone was bumped up to acting deputy chief of staff to Miller as then-immigration minister.
Kristen Moar has been hired as director of Indigenous relations to Gull-Masty—a title that, to Hill Climbers’ understanding, did not previously (at least formally) exist in the office. Moar, who is Cree, previously worked for the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Itschee). Gull-Masty is also Cree, and was grand chief of the Grand Council of the Crees from 2021 until earlier this year.
Chantal Tshimanga is in place as director of operations to the Indigenous services minister. She previously worked for the federal justice minister, a team she first joined as a special assistant for parliamentary affairs and West and North regional affairs under then-minister David Lametti after the 2021 election. Under then-justice minister Arif Virani, Tshimanga was promoted to senior Indigenous relations, operations, and parliamentary affairs adviser in 2024, and was elevated again—this time to manager of Indigenous relations and West regional affairs adviser—at the beginning of this year.
Tshimanga is a former constituency assistant to British Columbia Liberal MP Terry Beech, and for two years—2020 and 2021—she worked as a special assistant with the human resources team in then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s office.
Gull-Masty’s regional affairs team currently includes senior adviser for the Atlantic Ashley Harris, Prairies regional adviser Rahima Mian, and Quebec regional adviser Mouctar Yali Bah.
Harris has been covering the Atlantic desk in the Indigenous services minister’s office since 2022, having originally been hired by then-minister Patty Hajdu, who held responsibility for the portfolio from the 2021 election up until this past May. A former MP’s assistant, Harris has also previously worked for the Nova Scotia Liberals, and as a marketing assistant and commercial administrator with Universal Realty Group in Halifax.
Mian, who stepped into the federal electoral ring this past spring as the Liberal candidate in Regina–Qu’Appelle, Sask.—a seat ultimately held by Conservative incumbent Andrew Scheer—is another former Hajdu staffer. Mian was hired as a Saskatchewan and Alberta regional affairs adviser to Hajdu in August 2024 after completing a summer internship in Trudeau’s PMO.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Mian not only ran as a candidate in this year’s election, she also helped out the campaign of another fellow Liberal staffer-turned-candidate, Mac Hird, who carried the party’s banner in Regina–Lewvan, Sask. That riding likewise stayed blue, with Conservative incumbent Warren Steinley re-elected for a third term.
Yali Bah completed a master’s degree in public affairs at York University earlier this year, and has twice previously interned on Parliament Hill: in the summer of 2023 in the office of then-official languages minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor (though a mid-summer shuffle saw Randy Boissonnault take over that file), and in the summer of 2024 in Petitpas Taylor’s office as then-veterans affairs minister.
Sarah Dunn is now director of parliamentary affairs to Gull-Masty, having previously done the same for Miller as then-immigration minister. According to her LinkedIn profile, Dunn lent a hand to both Prime Minister Mark Carney’s successful leadership campaign at the beginning of this year, as well as to the subsequent national Liberal campaign.
Dunn was first hired to work for Miller in September 2022 as a Prairies regional adviser in his office as then-Crown-Indigenous relations minister, and she followed him to the immigration portfolio following the July 2023 cabinet shuffle. A former intern in then-Liberal MP John McKay’s office and in Trudeau’s PMO over the summer of 2021, Dunn has since also worked as an assistant to McKay, and as a West and North regional adviser to then-public services and procurement minister Filomena Tassi.
Working under Dunn are issues manager and parliamentary affairs adviser Jonah Rosen, and parliamentary affairs adviser and assistant to the parliamentary secretary Peter Katz. Currently, Manitoba Liberal MP Ginette Lavack is parliamentary secretary to Gull-Masty as Indigenous services minister.
Rosen is a former associate with The Park Group, a consulting agency based in Toronto with a “particular focus on international security, Canadian foreign policy, and global governance,” according to its website. He’s also a past fellow with the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), and interned in Trudeau’s PMO over the summers of 2023 and 2024. Rosen has been active with the Ontario Young Liberals, and, according to his LinkedIn profile, he spent this year’s election helping now-Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin get re-elected as the MP for Toronto–Danforth, Ont.
Katz recently graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and history, and spent the last year as senior editor of the school’s peer-reviewed journal Flux: International Relations Review. Another ex-CJPAC fellow, Katz also interned in the PMO over the summer of 2024, and did fundraising and engagement work for Carney’s Liberal leadership campaign. Katz is also a former intern and later constituency assistant to then-Toronto Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett.
Jérémy Collard has landed the role of director of communications to Gull-Masty.
A former press secretary to Diane Lebouthillier as both minister of national revenue and later as minister of fisheries and oceans, Collard was most recently working in the Prime Minister’s Office, having been hired there under Trudeau as a strategic communications adviser in July 2024. After a string of student placements—including with the Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Canada Revenue Agency—Collard worked as an assistant to Ontario Liberal MP Marie-France Lalonde between 2020 and 2022. He’s since also been a special assistant for communications and issues management to then-defence minister Anita Anand.
Finally, Olivia “Livi” McElrea is press secretary to the Indigenous services minister.
McElrea is another ex-Hajdu staffer. In her case, she was hired to Hajdu’s Indigenous services team in October 2024 as an issues manager and parliamentary affairs adviser. Before then, McElrea had spent roughly a year as a communications assistant to Boissonnault as then-employment minister. Her CV includes a past internship with the Correctional Service of Canada, among other things.
Stay tuned to Hill Climbers for further updates on Gull-Masty’s team.
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