Hill Climbers
‘A big get’: PM Carney’s chief of staff pick Blanchard lauded across partisan lines
After much speculation and weeks of waiting for news of who would be tapped to lead Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office, former ambassador Marc-André Blanchard has been announced as the PM’s incoming chief of staff, and his hiring is being lauded by observers for bringing needed experience to the top office.
“This is a big get for Mr. Carney,” said Ian Brodie, a former chief of staff to then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and now senior adviser with New West Public Affairs, of Blanchard’s hiring in an email to Hill Climbers.
“The chief of staff job should be an extension of the PM’s personality and agenda—someone who knows the PM well enough to keep more routine files moving ahead while taking only the most important to the PM for decision,” noted Brodie, who lauded Blanchard as a “highly experienced executive” with both public- and private-sector experience, and as someone who is “well known inside and outside Canada.”
“It will help that he’s also well known inside the Liberal Party,” he added.
Carney announced Blanchard’s hiring on X on June 1, putting an end to weeks of rumours and speculation over who would permanently take over the post. Former minister Marco Mendicino has been acting as chief of staff to Carney since mid-March, but his hiring was described as temporary. After the April 28 election, multiple names of potential chiefs of staff made the rounds, but in the absence of an announcement, reports surfaced that Carney was encountering troubles in finding someone to take on the job. On May 22, Carney posted on X news that Mendicino would be staying on as chief of staff into the summer.
As noted in Carney’s June 1 post, Blanchard will take over as chief of staff starting this July.
“Marc-André has a long and distinguished career as one of Canada’s most accomplished builders, legal experts, executives, public servants, and diplomats,” wrote Carney.
Blanchard has been executive vice-president and head of Quebec-based pension and insurance investment management firm Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) Global—which he helped establish—since 2020, and since 2022 has also held the title of global head of sustainability for CDPQ.
Between 2016 and 2020, Blanchard was Canada’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations. He previously spent decades working in law, both with Woods LLP and McCarthy Tétrault. Blanchard worked at the latter firm between 1997 and 2016 (with a brief gap at the turn of the last decade); from 2003 to 2009, he was McCarthy Tétrault’s regional managing partner for Quebec, and from 2010 to 2016 he was chair and CEO of the firm.
“Under his leadership, CDPQ Global was established to support its investment teams on the ground through high-level relations with governments and partners worldwide in order to assist Québec companies in their globalization and to position CDPQ as a preferred investment partner internationally,” reads a June 1 post from CDPQ on Blanchard’s upcoming departure.
“Answering the call to serve my country is a decision I make with humility and enthusiasm,” reads a quote attributed to Blanchard in the post.
Blanchard, who turns 60 this year, is also known to be an active Liberal Party supporter, and served as Quebec Liberal Party president from 2000 to 2008. He’s a known past adviser to former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, and was part of the 2015 post-election transition team assembled by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau. In 2017, Blanchard was among those named to Canada’s NAFTA Council, which weighed in on then-ongoing renegotiations of the trilateral trade pact. He’s also Canada’s former representative to the Ismaili Imamat.
Hill Climbers understands that under the Trudeau government, Blanchard was—on multiple occasions—among those called upon to assist with cabinet vetting.
Reacting to news of Blanchard’s hiring on X, former interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose, who also served on the NAFTA council, called it an “Excellent choice.”
Former PCO clerk Wayne Wouters, who’s now a strategic and policy adviser with McCarthy Tétrault, overlapped with Blanchard at the firm for a little more than a year—in fact, he said Blanchard helped talk him into joining it after retiring from the public service in 2014.
“He understood what a non-lawyer like myself, how I could add value to McCarthy Tétrault,” said Wouters, noting Blanchard is “very good” at bringing teams together.
“He’s a very open, transparent leader. I found him to be also very collaborative; he was very good at reaching out to many of our clients … as the managing director, he made sure that he got to know the CEOs and senior leadership, the executive suite, of many of these companies and took part in a lot of discussions, and brought me along as well especially if there was a discussion about where the country is, where the country’s going, what’s the position of the government-of-the-day on various issues,” said Wouters.
During Wouters’ roughly five years as PCO clerk, he worked with three different chiefs of staff to then-PM Stephen Harper.
“They’re incredibly time-consuming jobs; you give your almost 24/7,” said Wouters, adding he gives Blanchard “a lot of credit” for taking on such a job at this point in his career. “I also give a lot of credit to the prime minister to seek him out and bring somebody like that in.”
Former Trudeau director of communications Cameron Ahmad worked with Blanchard during his time in the PMO when Blanchard was UN ambassador, and described Carney’s incoming chief as “thoughtful, decisive, and compassionate,” in emailed comments to Hill Climbers.
“He was a phenomenal representative for Canada, navigating us through difficult times and forging strategic relationships with global counterparts. I’m thrilled he was appointed [as chief of staff]; he has all the right attributes to guide the PMO and government through this critical period,” said Ahmad.
Former senior Liberal staffer Zita Astravas, who worked at the federal level between 2015 and 2013 including as a cabinet chief of staff and director of issues management in Trudeau’s PMO, crossed paths with Blanchard “in Liberal circles for the last number of years,” in addition to his time as UN ambassador, and described him as a “trusted adviser” and “sharp operator—one of the sharpest.”
“He’s very clear and concise, and really a brilliant adviser,” said Astravas. “He brings a certain tenacity and energy to every room that he’s in, and is really able to drive results. … He brings a wealth of experience, and, you know, there are very few people who have seen it all, and certainly I would consider Marc-André one of the ones who nothing fazes.”
Blanchard is someone “cuts through the bullshit,” she said. As PMO chief of staff, he’ll be a key cabinet “interlocutor,” and the PM’s “air traffic controller on whatever the issue of the day is”—responsibilities that she said mesh well with Blanchard’s strengths.
“[The Liberals have] leaned on Marc-André for a number of things … whether it’s from a policy standpoint when he was ambassador, or even just a sage adviser. He’s able to unpack really complex problems and really troubleshoot a path to get to where you want to go,” said Astravas.
Along with Blanchard’s extensive public and private sector contacts, Astravas noted he’s “no stranger” to the complexities of the Canada-United States file.
Though still not confirmed by the PMO or mentioned in Carney’s social media posts, media have reported that former minister David Lametti has also been hired by the PMO as principal secretary. Tom Pitfield has served in that capacity for Carney’s transition into office, and was executive campaign director during the recent election.
Lametti represented LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, Que., in the House of Commons from 2015 until his resignation in 2024. After serving turns as parliamentary secretary to the trade minister and then to the innovation minister, Lametti joined cabinet as minister of justice in 2019, serving in the role until the July 2023 cabinet shuffle, which saw him dropped from the front bench—a move that surprised many, Lametti included.
A former law professor at McGill University, Lametti returned to his legal roots in 2024, joining Fasken’s Montreal team as counsel. He played a hand in both Carney’s leadership campaign, and the recent election campaign—having been in the rooms to celebrate both victories—and has reportedly helped with Carney’s transition. The two have known each other since their time as students at the University of Oxford in the 1990s.
Speaking to indication of his hiring, Astravas said that as a former MP and minister, Lametti would bring “a real, big strength to the team on caucus relations.”
Particularly when it comes to relations with cabinet “you can have a good relationship on a good day, but you need a strong relationship on a bad day, and certainly David does bring that to the table as well,” she said.
As recently reported, Liberal MPs told The Hill Times Carney needs to maintain direct and consistent contact with caucus members in order to succeed.
With the naming of a permanent chief of staff, the ball is now rolling for the PMO to firm up staffing hires. Stay tuned to Climbers for more updates.
The Hill Times
LICENSING
PODCAST
ALERTS
