Hill Climbers
Four rookies among seven new confirmed cabinet chiefs of staff
Progress in firming up cabinet teams is chugging along, and while a wave of staffing decisions are expected mid-month, in the meantime, five more ministers and two secretaries of state have settled their chiefs of staff.
Of the now 19 cabinet chiefs of staff confirmed as of midday May 30, eight are women.
The latest seven announcements, first reported by Politico’s Canada Playbook on May 29, include four rookie chiefs.
One first-time cabinet chief of staff is François Giroux, who’s been elevated to run Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s office.
A former public servant with the Department of Justice, Giroux had been working in the justice minister’s office as a judicial affairs adviser since May 2018, beginning under then-minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, and continuing through David Lametti and Arif Virani’s turns in the post. Anandasangaree replaced Virani as justice minister in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first cabinet in March, but has since been succeeded by Nova Scotia Liberal MP Sean Fraser, who was sworn in as justice minister and attorney general on May 13 while Anandasangaree was sworn in as minister of public safety.
Noémie Fiset-Tremblay has likewise stepped into the chiefs chair for the first time in Secretary of State for Labour John Zerucelli’s office.
She was previously deputy chief of staff and director of policy to now-House Leader Steven MacKinnon as then-employment, workforce development, and labour minister. A former labour and employment lawyer in Quebec and a past adviser to then-Quebec Liberal MNA Maryse Gaudreault, Fiset-Tremblay was originally hired as a senior policy adviser to MacKinnon as then-labour and seniors minister late last summer.
Rookie Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight has also elevated a fresh chief of staff in Dilys Fernandes, who was previously deputy chief of staff and director of policy to then-sport minister Carla Qualtrough.
Fernandes started on the Hill after the 2015 election as an assistant to then-Liberal MP Marco Mendicino, who currently continues to helm Carney’s office as prime minister. She landed her first cabinet role in 2016 as a special assistant for operations to then-public services minister Judy Foote. Qualtrough took over the portfolio in 2017, and Fernandes subsequently became an operations and Atlantic regional adviser, sticking with the office through to 2018, when she exited to become executive assistant to the chief of staff to then-innovation minister Navdeep Bains. She’s since also been a policy adviser for youth, and later director of operations to then-diversity, youth, and inclusion minister Bardish Chagger.
In 2021, Fernandes returned to Qualtrough’s employ, this time as director of operations to the then-employment minister, and followed Qualtrough to the sport portfolio after the minister was shuffled in July 2023.
After twice serving in the role on an acting basis, Kendra Wilcox is officially chief of staff to now-Women and Gender Equality Minister and Secretary of State for Small Business and Tourism Rechie Valdez.
Wilcox was most recently acting chief of staff to Valdez as then-minister for small business, having been hired to that office as director of policy and stakeholder relations in the fall of 2023.
A cabinet staffer since the beginning of 2019, Wilcox got her start as a special assistant for the Atlantic to then-rural economic development minister Bernadette Jordan (whose MP office Wilcox had earlier staffed). After Maryam Monsef took over the file, becoming minister of rural economic development alongside continuing as minister for women and gender equality following the 2019 election, Wilcox was kept on as a policy adviser. Wilcox was subsequently promoted to senior policy adviser, then director of operations by Monsef. Gudie Hutchings took over the rural economic development portfolio following the 2021 election, and subsequently named Wilcox as her director of policy and operations. In 2023, Wilcox stepped in as acting chief of staff to Hutchings.
Speaking of rural development, Maria Morley has been named chief of staff to Secretary of State for Rural Development Buckley Belanger.
Morley is relatively new to the role of chief of staff, having first been promoted to run then-agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay’s office only this past January. Before then, she’d been director of operations to the minister since October 2023.
Morley first joined the Liberal research bureau as special assistant for Atlantic regional affairs in 2020, and has since also been an Atlantic adviser to Qualtrough as then-employment minister and an Atlantic adviser in then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s office.
Adam Carroll is once again a cabinet chief of staff, and has been hired to run Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Minister Lena Metlege Diab’s office.
A veteran Liberal staffer, Carroll’s last cabinet post was as a senior adviser to then-seniors minister Kamal Khera. During the 43rd Parliament, Carroll was chief of staff to then-infrastructure and communities minister Catherine McKenna. He’s been working on the Hill since the 2000s—with his CV including runs working for then-human resources and skills development minister Joe Volpe and then-Liberal MP Bonnie Crombie, and as a researcher in the Liberal caucus’ research bureau—and from 2017 to 2019, he was chief of staff to the Treasury Board president, beginning under then-president Scott Brison. Between 2015 and 2017, Carroll was national field director for the federal Liberal Party.
Paul Moen has been scooped up to lead Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s office.
Moen has been running ministerial offices since 2019, beginning as chief of staff to then-natural resources minister Seamus O’Regan. He later helmed O’Regan’s office as then-labour and seniors minister, and most recently ran MacKinnon’s offices as labour and seniors minister; employment, workforce development, and labour minister; and as jobs and families minister.
Prior to 2019, Moen had most recently been a principal with Earnscliffe Strategies. He’s also a former director of global government affairs with biotech company Amgen, and corporate lawyer with Merck Serono, among other past roles. Between 2002 and 2003, he was a lead counsel with Industry Canada, after which he spent a little more than a year and a half as a senior policy adviser to then-federal trade minister Jim Peterson.
The other confirmed chiefs of staff include: Ian Foucher, who’s leading Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s office; Kathy Kettler, chief of staff to Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand; Hilary Leftick, who’s running Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault’s office; Chris Evelyn, who’s helming Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu’s shop; Eamonn McGuinty, chief of staff to Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson; Brandan Rowe, chief of staff to Privy Council, Intergovernmental Affairs, Canada-U.S. Trade, and One Canadian Economy Minister Dominic LeBlanc; Guy Gallant, who’s in charge of Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald’s team; Rheal Lewis, chief of staff to Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon; Jade Mallette, who’s leading Health Minister Marjorie Michel’s office; Morgan Breitkreuz, chief of staff to Emergency Management and Community Resilience Minister Eleanor Olszewski; Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers, who’s running Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson’s office; and Neil MacIsaac, chief of staff to Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson.
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