Health Minister Marjorie Michel has to date pulled together a 17-member staff team, which includes a number of former staffers to then-health ministers Jean-Yves Duclos and Mark Holland.
As previously reported, Jade Mallette is chief of staff to the rookie minister.
Michel is herself a former cabinet staffer and ex-deputy chief of staff to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau. The now-minister’s time as a staffer included roughly three years working for Duclos as then-families minister between November 2016 and November 2019, and some of her former colleagues are now part of her ministerial team.
Sandenga Yeba has returned to the health file as deputy chief of staff and director of policy to Michel.
Most recently director of policy to then-tourism and Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Yeba previously worked for then-health minister Duclos for almost two years from the beginning of 2022 until the fall of 2023. First hired as a senior policy adviser to Duclos, Yeba was promoted to deputy policy director to the minister at the end of 2022.
Yeba is also a past senior policy and Quebec regional affairs adviser to then-agriculture minister Marie-Claude Bibeau—his first job with the federal government. Before then, he’d been an economic and commercial development adviser to Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante. He’s also an ex-adviser to then-Quebec economic development minister and deputy premier Dominique Anglade and a past co-ordinator with Montréal International.
Working under Yeba are senior policy advisers Roy Karam, Jibril Hussein, Shahad Khalladi; policy adviser Bryan Savage; and policy co-ordinator Justine Frame.
Karam has been with the health minister’s office since the start of 2022. Beginning as an Atlantic regional adviser to then-minister Duclos, Karam stuck with the office as director of operations after Holland was shuffled into the post in July 2023. Karam is also a past assistant to Nova Scotia Liberal MP Mike Kelloway, and a former Atlantic regional adviser and assistant to the parliamentary secretary to then-employment minister Patty Hajdu.
Hussein spent the last roughly year and a half working for then-small business minister Rechie Valdez, starting as a West and North regional affairs adviser and ending as a senior policy adviser. According to his LinkedIn profile, he stepped in as acting director of policy to Valdez at the beginning of this year. A former constituency assistant to then-Manitoba Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk, Hussein spent the summers of 2018 and 2019 interning in then-science—and later science and sport—minister Kirsty Duncan’s office. He landed his first full-time cabinet job in 2021 when he was hired as an Atlantic regional adviser and assistant to the parliamentary secretary to then-families minister Ahmed Hussen, and went on to work as a policy adviser to then-families minister Karina Gould.
Khalladi last held the title of deputy director of policy to then-women and gender equality and youth minister Marci Ien, having been hired by Ien in May 2024. Before then, Khalladi was a senior policy adviser to then-innovation minister François-Philippe Champagne, whose office she first joined as a policy adviser in February 2022. Khalladi’s CV includes time spent as an international public affairs officer with the National Council of Canadian Muslims; a science policy analyst in the office of Chief Science Adviser Mona Nemer, which falls under Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada; and as an assistant to Ontario Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld, among other past jobs. She also spent roughly six months in 2017 as an intern tackling youth affairs and public appointments in Trudeau’s PMO.
Savage, who holds a master of political management degree from Carleton University, is a practicing psychotherapist, and in 2020 founded her own clinic, Plum Mental Wellness, in Toronto, through which she’s offered psychotherapy services. Before then, Savage had worked for the Farber Group, according to her LinkedIn profile. She’s also a former yoga teacher with Bodhi Tree Yoga, and worked as an administrative assistant with the Saint Paul University Counselling Centre while working towards a master’s degree in psychotherapy, counselling, and spirituality at the school.
Yves-Joseph Rosalbert is director of operations and outreach to Michel. He, too, comes from Valdez’s former office as then-small business minister where Rosalbert had been director of parliamentary affairs and issues management since 2023.
Rosalbert has previously overseen parliamentary affairs for then-international development minister Harjit Sajjan, and since first landing on the Hill in early 2019, he’s also been a Quebec regional adviser, and later policy and Quebec adviser, to then-veterans affairs minister Lawrence MacAulay, and a policy adviser to then-sport minister Pascale St-Onge. Rosalbert also has experience working at Quebec’s national assembly as an adviser to the province’s then-immigration, diversity, and inclusion minister David Heurtel.
Shanzae Khan is covering Ontario as a senior regional adviser to Michel. A former field organizer for the federal Liberal Party, Khan worked in the health offices of then-ministers Duclos and Holland, starting under the former as an Ontario regional affairs adviser in January 2023.
Josh Jagger is on board as an Atlantic regional affairs adviser to the health minister, while Jaeda Schilke covers the West and North.
Jagger, a former director of data and operations for the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, previously did the same for Holland as then-health minister. Jagger worked for the provincial party from late 2016 until early 2023, and before then was a customer service representative with Nova Scotia Power.
Schilke spent the recent election as a volunteer co-ordinator and field organizer for now-Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight, and before then, worked in Trudeau’s PMO as a special assistant for human resources. Schilke was hired to the PMO after her Liberal Summer Leadership Program internship in the top office came to an end. She’s also a former constituency assistant to then-Liberal MP Carla Qualtrough—who previously represented McKnight’s riding of Delta, B.C.—and spent the summer of 2023 as an intern in the federal employment minister’s office.
Sachini Liyanage is an operations adviser in the office. Liyanage was also last working in the PMO as an assistant for public appointments starting in March 2024. Before then, she’d worked at Liberal Party headquarters as a riding and party services co-ordinator.
Matthew Pollesel has returned to Ottawa’s political staff ranks as director of parliamentary affairs and issues management to Michel. He’s spent the last roughly two years working as a public servant with Public Services and Procurement Canada as a legislative and policy adviser.
A former digital engagement specialist with the United States Embassy in Ottawa, Pollesel began working for the Trudeau government in 2017 as a special assistant for communications to Duclos as then-families minister. Later named a senior special assistant for parliamentary affairs and issues management to Duclos, Pollesel has since also been director of parliamentary affairs to then-women and gender equality minister Maryam Monsef, then-economic development and official languages minister Mélanie Joly, and then-official languages and Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor.
Supporting Pollesel is parliamentary affairs adviser Sara Kasum. Kasum has been working on the Hill since the spring of 2022, starting as a digital strategy adviser with the Liberal research bureau (LRB). She went on to tackle digital communications for then-Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) minister Filomena Tassi, and was most recently a digital communications and issues adviser to then-democratic institutions and FedDev Ontario minister Ruby Sahota. Prior to joining the LRB, Kasum had been an event co-ordinator with the Hamilton Law Association.
Guillaume Bertrand has also made his return to the health file as director of communications to Michel.
Bertrand last worked in the health office as a senior communications adviser and press secretary to then-minister Duclos between 2022 and 2023. A former assistant to Duclos as the MP for Québec, Que., Bertrand joined then-deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland’s office as a communications adviser after the 2021 election. After roughly a year working for Duclos at health, Bertrand returned to Freeland’s office, this time as director of Quebec outreach and strategy. Bertrand has since also been senior communications adviser and press secretary, and most recently director of communications to Duclos as then-public services and procurement minister. He spent the recent federal election as a Liberal campaign spokesperson.
Emilie Gauduchon-Campbell is back on the Hill as a senior communications and issues adviser to Michel.
Gauduchon-Campbell previously worked as a federal political staffer between 2016 and 2019, starting as press secretary to Duclos as then-families minister and ending as his director of communications. Gauduchon-Campbell first stepped away from Duclos’ office in 2018 to go on maternity leave, but, after having twins, returned over the summer of 2019 and worked for the minister for a few months up until that year’s federal election. Post-election, Duclos was shuffled into a new portfolio, and soon after came the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which together led Gauduchon-Campbell to the decision to step away from politics to focus on her family. Prior to working for Duclos, she’d worked for her alma mater, the Université de Montréal, as a project manager. Gauduchon-Campbell is also a former communications manager with the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime, among other past jobs.
Finally, Rachel Desjardins is director of executive services.
A former executive secretariat manager with the office of the federal privacy commissioner, Desjardins is a former longtime aide to Duclos, having first been hired as a senior special assistant in his office as then-families minister at the start of the 42nd Parliament. She’s since been a senior executive assistant to Duclos as then-Treasury Board president, then-health minister, and then-public services minister. At the end of last year, she was promoted to director of executive services to Duclos as then-public services minister—her most recent role.
The Hill Times