OTTAWA—There was both fanfare and criticism when Prime Minister Mark Carney rolled out his second cabinet last week. In the early hours after the swearing in, the government pushed hard in noting 24 new faces in the cabinet, and argued it was smaller than former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s. They were quite cheeky in calling themselves Canada’s new cabinet and new government, language eerily like Stephen Harper’s 2006 public branding of his team.

However, it didn’t take long for observers to recognize a lot of familiar Trudeau-era faces on Team Carney and in senior roles. Among them, Anita Anand at foreign affairs, Mélanie Joly at industry, Chrystia Freeland at transport and internal trade, François-Philippe Champagne back at finance, and Dominic LeBlanc as minister of everything. While Carney reasonably argued he needed experience at his cabinet table, it did not mute some opposition criticism that more of the Trudeau era should have been flushed.

And in the early hours of the new cabinet, the new ministers were making the rounds with the media and tripping over themselves in some kind of Keystone Cops-esque skit. Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson somehow mused that he doesn’t think houses are too expensive; Steven Guilbeault—minister of something called culture and identity—kept up his no-more-pipelines game face, directly contradicting his boss on whether Canada needs a new pipeline.

Then the secretary of state for the Canada Revenue Agency, the likeable Wayne Long, said his boss was going to run the government like a corporation—that landed with a thud. The secretary of state likely meant to say “efficiently,” but oh well. Side note: he could make his own department more efficient by getting rid of all those extra auditors the government hired under Trudeau who do a great job of shaking down widowers and pensioners.

The best ministerial misstep was done by the minister of finance, who announced the government would have no budget to introduce in its first parliamentary sitting and might have a traditional economic statement in the fall. Without a compelling rationale for no budget to be presented, it looked like the Liberals had scored an own goal. Carney worked to correct that when he announced at a news conference in Rome—where he was attending the new Pope’s inauguration mass—that a budget would be delivered in the fall when economic indicators may be clearer.

One thing the Carney government did for which it didn’t get enough proper credit was bringing back a secretary for state for sport, and appointing one of Canada’s foremost Olympians—Adam van Koeverden—to take on that key role. By now, it is well known that Carney is a big advocate of sport and physical activity. Never has a single campaign had so many hockey analogies or messages, never mind references to running and the power of the Olympics.

At their core, Carney and van Koeverden recognize the power of sport for not only transforming our health, but also our lives. Both have also seen the opportunity global sports performances and engagements provide to advance the country’s reputation, open doors for diplomacy and trade, and boost our global status. If—as the prime minister has argued—Canada needs to diversify economically, sport is a useful tool to drive that agenda.

Equally, with the world coming to Los Angeles in 2028 for the Summer Olympics, it’s hard not to applaud a scenario where Canada looks to use that as a stage to have incredible athletic performances by our athletes. There’s nothing like showing Americans in their backyard, with their leaders and the rest of the world watching, that we take a back seat to no one.

Canada’s sport system has its challenges, but if the prime minister and his secretary of state lean in here, they could produce some big wins from which we’d all benefit.

Tim Powers is chairman of Summa Strategies, and managing director of Abacus Data. He is a former adviser to Conservative political leaders.

The Hill Times

 

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