Pitfield still in principal secretary post seven weeks after Lametti took on job
Despite David Lametti’s appointment as principal secretary to Prime Minister Mark Carney about two months ago, Tom Pitfield continues in the role with no firm departure date. Both are currently serving in the Prime Minister’s Office as principal secretaries.
Lametti, a former justice minister and attorney general in former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, announced on social media on July 10 that he has joined the PMO and will assume the responsibilities of principal secretary on July 14. Lametti and Carney (Nepean, Ont.) have been friends since their university days at Oxford. The former justice minister, who until recently worked for a high-profile law firm in Montreal, played a key role in Carney’s Liberal leadership win.
Although it is now September, Pitfield, who is married to Anna Gainey (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, Que.), secretary of state for children and youth, is still working as principal secretary.
One of the key files that he has been working on since joining the PMO is the Canada-U.S. trade negotiations. He first joined the PMO in this position in March after Carney won the Liberal leadership and later served as executive campaign director in the 2025 general election campaign, which yielded a fourth consecutive win for the Liberals. The 2015 election delivered a majority for the Liberals, but the 2019, 2021, and 2025 elections each led to minority governments. Trudeau led his party in the first three elections and Carney in the most recent election.
The principal secretary is considered the second-most influential position in the nation’s most powerful political office, after the prime minister’s chief of staff.
A senior government official told The Hill Times that as of July 14, the PMO was in a transition period where both Pitfield and Lametti are working as principal secretaries. The source, however, added that Pitfield informed the prime minister in late spring that he would not continue to serve in this position “long beyond the summer.” The official however did not define what “long beyond the summer” means.
A long-time Liberal strategist, Pitfield is the former CEO of Data Sciences, the data firm behind Liberalist, the party’s voter outreach tool.
A childhood friend of Trudeau, Pitfield was on an unpaid leave of absence from the PMO during the federal election campaign this past spring and remains in full compliance with the rules set by the federal ethics commissioner, the PMO told The Hill Times in late May.
When reached last week to confirm if Pitfield has filed the required paperwork for the initial compliance process, considering he is still employed with the PMO, a spokesperson for the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner declined to confirm, citing privacy reasons.
“The [Conflict of Interest] Act’s strict confidentiality requirements limit what we can disclose about specific public office holders,” wrote Michael Wrobel, a communications officer, in an email to The Hill Times.
Wrobel however said that exempt ministerial staffers including the PMO staff who work 15 hours or more a week are subject to the Conflict of Interest Act. Under the act, he said, the staffers have to complete the initial compliance process within 120 days of their appointment. He said the 120 days start on the day a staffer or public office holder is appointed to a position. In the first 60 days, these staffers have to disclose personal and financial information—including assets, liabilities, sources of income and outside activities—concerning their family members.
After reviewing the information, the office advises public office holders on how to avoid a conflict of interest. Following the completion of the initial compliance process, the office posts a summary of their information on the public registry, Wrobel said by email. He said that the initial compliance process may occasionally take longer than 120 days but the office does not impose any monetary administrative penalties if progress is being made.
The ethics commissioner’s website, which publishes the status of these disclosure processes, says under Pitfield’s profile: “Initial compliance process being completed.”
It unclear what Pitfield—who is the son of the late Michael Pitfield, a former Privy Council Office clerk and Senator—will do after he leaves the PMO, but many Liberal sources have speculated in speaking with The Hill Times that he will go back to Data Sciences.
Meanwhile, the government official who informed The Hill Times that Tom Pitfield was still on staff said that even after he leaves the role of principal secretary, Pitfield will remain an important behind-the-scenes unofficial adviser, especially on issues like Canada-U.S. trade negotiations.
Lametti, the permanent principal secretary, has been a key member of Carney’s transition team after the Liberal leadership election. Lametti is a respected legal scholar who helped to vet Carney’s cabinet appointments and is known as a trusted adviser of the prime minister.
He represented the Quebec riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun from 2015 to 2024. Lametti served in the Trudeau cabinet between 2019 and 2023, at which point he was dropped in a July shuffle. Expressing surprise at the decision, he resigned his seat in the House seat in January 2024.
After Lametti’s departure from the Liberal caucus, the party lost the riding to the Bloc Québécois in a byelection held in September 2024. The setback was largely attributed to then-prime minister Trudeau’s unpopularity at the time, which was driven by cost-of-living concerns. However, the Liberals managed to reclaim the riding in the general election on April 28.
The Prime Minister’s Office is led by chief of staff Marc-André Blanchard, who is assisted by two deputy chiefs of staff: Braeden Caley and Andrée-Lyne Hallé. The most recent senior staff addition is Jeff Costen, who holds the position of director of issues management. Costen most recently worked at public affairs company Navigator but had also, in the past, worked at Queen’s Park as a ministerial staffer.
Other senior PMO staff include Sylvie Peterson, manager of the PMO’s executive office; Tim Krupa, director of policy; Shaili Patel, deputy director of policy; Katharine Heus, deputy director of policy; Lisa Jørgenson, director of global affairs; Scott Gilmore, senior adviser for foreign, defence and security policy; Jane Deeks, director of communications; Angad Dhillon, director of operations; Mike Maka, director of tour and strategic planning; and Alexandre Boulé, senior adviser.
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