Hill Climbers
Meet the first 12 chiefs of staff confirmed for the Carney cabinet
The names of the first 12 cabinet chiefs of staff under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government were released on May 23, and the list includes five rookie chiefs.
Of the 12, four are women—one of whom is Inuk—and two are Black men.
Altogether, Carney’s cabinet includes 28 ministers and 10 secretaries of state.
Starting with the new, Hilary Leftick is back on the Hill, this time as chief of staff to Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault.
Leftick recently led Carney’s successful campaign to represent Nepean, Ont., in the House of Commons, and was in the room for his swearing in last week. She was last on the Hill in 2022 as director of public appointments in Justin Trudeau’s office as then-prime minister (PMO), where she’d overall worked since early 2016, beginning as a youth affairs adviser to Trudeau (who at the time was also responsible for the youth file).
Until recently, Leftick was vice-president of sustainability and communications with Food Cycle Science, which is focused on food waste. Leftick is also a former director of volunteer mobilization for the federal Liberal Party.
Another first-time chief of staff is Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers, who was a deputy director for both Carney’s leadership campaign and the Liberals’ national campaign, and has been named chief of staff to Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson.
Des Rosiers has been working for cabinet ministers since the end of 2015, starting as a Quebec assistant to then-infrastructure minister Amarjeet Sohi. She went on to be press secretary to then-environment minister Catherine McKenna, a communications assistant in Trudeau’s PMO, and director of communications to then-fisheries minister Jonathan Wilkinson before stepping away from politics following the 2019 federal election. Des Rosiers spent a few years working in the private sector, including as a communications manager with PwC Canada and a director with consultancy firm Will & Way, before returning in the fall of 2023 as a PMO advance—her most recent role.
Neil MacIsaac has been hired to run new Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson’s office.
MacIsaac was chief of staff to Kody Blois during Blois’ recent, brief turn as agriculture and rural economic development minister in Carney’s first, short-lived cabinet, and before then was deputy chief of staff and director of policy to then-rural economic development minister Gudie Hutchings.
A former Nova Scotia Liberal staffer and past Atlantic adviser in then-interim Liberal leader Bob Rae’s office, MacIsaac isn’t new to the fisheries file. He previously worked for the minister for fisheries and oceans from the end of 2019 until the summer of 2023, starting as director of operations to then-minister Bernadette Jordan and ending as director of fisheries management and deputy chief of staff to then-minister Joyce Murray.
Emergency Management and Community Resilience Minister Eleanor Olszewski, who’s also responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada, has hired Morgan Breitkreuz to run her office.
Breitkreuz previously worked for the federal Liberal Party, and started on the Hill in 2021 as an Alberta and Saskatchewan adviser to then-special representative for the Prairies Jim Carr. After that year’s election, Breitkreuz joined then-tourism and associate finance minister Randy Boissonnault’s team as director of operations. Breitkreuz was later deputy chief of staff and director of operations to Boissonnault as then-employment minister, and most recently chief of staff to then-sport and Prairies Economic Development minister Terry Duguid.
Jade Mallette has been tapped to run new Health Minister Marjorie Michel’s shop.
A first-time chief of staff, Mallette has been with the health minister’s office since February 2022, beginning as director of parliamentary affairs to then-minister Jean-Yves Duclos. An ex-aide to then-Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, Mallette was hired to the Treasury Board president’s office as a special assistant for parliamentary affairs and issues management to then-president Duclos after the 2019 election. By the 2021 writs, Mallette had worked her way up to senior adviser for parliamentary affairs and labour relations. She stuck with the office for a short time post-election as director of labour relations to then-president Mona Fortier before following Duclos to the health.
New Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson has named Eamonn McGuinty as chief of staff.
McGuinty, who is the son of Defence Minister David McGuinty, has been working off the Hill as a business adviser with BDC since 2023, but for about a year and a half between 2022 and 2023 the younger McGuinty was a senior policy adviser to Guilbeault as then-environment minister. Eamonn McGuinty’s CV includes time spent working as a consultant for Deloitte, as a research adviser with Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab (he holds a master’s degree in natural resource and environmental management from the school), as an international trade underwriter with Export Development Canada, and as an investment associate with InvestEco Capital, among other past jobs.
Turning to the familiar, Ian Foucher is staying on as chief of staff to now-Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne. Foucher was previously chief of staff to Champagne as then-innovation minister, starting on an acting basis in 2022 and continuing in a permanent capacity as of March 2023.
A former Bank of Canada senior analyst (overlapping with Carney at the Bank for about one year), Foucher worked for then-finance minister Bill Morneau during the Trudeau government’s first almost five years in power, starting as an adviser for financial sector policy and international trade in December 2015, and ending in 2020 as a special adviser on the economy and director of appointments. In between, Foucher held the titles of deputy director of financial sector policy, and director of policy. After Morneau left cabinet, Foucher briefly worked as a senior manager with Deloitte before returning to the Hill to work for Champagne.
Privy Council President and Intergovernmental Affairs, Canada-U.S. Trade, and One Canadian Economy Minister Dominic LeBlanc has likewise kept his chief of staff from the last Parliament, Brandan Rowe, who was first promoted to run LeBlanc’s office as then-minister for intergovernmental affairs and democratic institutions in July 2024. LeBlanc has since been minister of finance and intergovernmental affairs, and briefly was also minister of international trade and intergovernmental affairs in addition to serving as Privy Council president.
Rowe has been working on the Hill since the 2015 election, starting as an assistant to then-Liberal MP Arif Virani. He went on to work as assistant to the parliamentary secretary, and later Atlantic regional adviser, in the immigration minister’s office under then-ministers John McCallum and Ahmed Hussen, and was first hired as a policy adviser to LeBlanc as then-intergovernmental affairs and northern affairs and internal trade minister in 2018. Sticking with LeBlanc through his various portfolio iterations since, Rowe worked his way up to senior policy adviser, then director of policy, before adding deputy chief of staff to his title in 2023.
Unsurprisingly, Rheal Lewis is continuing as chief of staff to Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon. Given the office’s specialization in House rules and procedures, its staff roster is typically much more static.
Lewis’ time on the Hill dates back to the 36th Parliament, and after a roughly three-year run with Summa Strategies, he’s been in various Hill offices since 2004, starting as an assistant to then-Liberal MP Paul Zed. Between 2008 and 2015, he worked in the Liberal official opposition leader’s office through Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Rae, and Trudeau’s turns in the role, largely as director of or senior adviser for parliamentary affairs. After the 2015 election, Lewis joined Trudeau’s PMO as a legislative assistant but left just shy of a year in to become chief of staff to then-House leader Bardish Chagger. He’s been leading the office ever since.
Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu, who’s also responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, has scooped up Chris Evelyn as her chief of staff.
Evelyn has been working for Liberal ministers since 2015—starting as a policy adviser to then-democratic institutions minister Karina Gould—and has been a cabinet chief of staff since 2020, having first been elevated to the role by then-women and gender equality and rural economic development minister Maryam Monsef. Prior to his promotion, Evelyn had been director of operations to Monsef. He’s since been chief of staff to then-women and gender equality and youth minister Marci Ien, and more recently to then-families, children, and social development minister Jenna Sudds.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Evelyn was director of outreach for the Liberals’ 2025 campaign. Prior to 2015, he worked for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, last as a policy adviser.
Another experienced chief, Guy Gallant, has been tapped to run new Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Heath MacDonald’s office.
Hailing from the East Coast, Gallant was most recently chief of staff to Liberal MP Ginette Petitpas Taylor, starting in 2021 during her time as then-official languages minister and continuing through her turns as minister for veterans affairs, and most recently Treasury Board president.
A former press secretary to then-P.E.I. premier Robert Ghiz and ex-communications director to then-New Brunswick premier Brian Gallant (no relation)—among other things—Gallant was hired as director of communications to then-agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay in early 2016. He went on to briefly oversee communications for then-heritage minister Pablo Rodriguez before returning to MacAulay’s agriculture office as chief of staff at the start of 2019. Gallant later ran MacAulay’s office as then-veterans affairs minister before stepping away from the Hill for a little more than a year, which he spent as vice-president of communications for the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. He returned after the 2021 election to run Petitipas Taylor’s office.
Finally, another cabinet rookie, Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand, has hired Kathy Kettler as her chief of staff. Kettler became the first-ever Inuk chief of staff to a federal minister in 2022 when she was tapped to run then-northern affairs minister Dan Vandal’s office. Vandal, who did not seek re-election this year, was dropped from cabinet this past December, and Kettler subsequently became a senior adviser for the North and Arctic to then-Crown-Indigenous relations minister Gary Anandasangaree.
A former policy analyst with the Assembly of First Nations and an ex-senior policy adviser with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Kettler began working for the Trudeau government in the fall of 2017, beginning as an adviser in then-Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott. She was later promoted to director of operations by then-Indigenous services minister Marc Miller, who she later followed to the Crown-Indigenous relations portfolio as deputy chief of staff.
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