Carney Reshuffles Cabinet Roles

Marc Miller is the new minister of Canadian identity and culture, as well as official languages.

Public Works and Procurement Minister Joël Lightbound was given the additional role of being Carney’s Quebec lieutenant while Minister of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin added parks and nature to her file.

All of those responsibilities had previously been held by former minister Steven Guilbeault who resigned from cabinet last week.

Miller had been in charge of immigration, Crown-Indigenous relations and Indigenous services under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

The Montreal MP was not given a cabinet post when Carney first took office.

Miller told reporters that he was happy to be back in cabinet.

“It feels great, I’m a guy that likes to be busy and so I was a little restless. But it’s nice to get the opportunity to keep on doing some amazing work,” he said after the swearing-in ceremony.

Lightbound was first elected in 2015 and has been a parliamentary secretary to a number of cabinet ministers, but was only given his first cabinet post following the April election.
Similarly, Dabrusin had served as a parliamentary secretary under Trudeau, but was promoted to cabinet under Carney in the spring.

Lightbound said he was “honoured” to be given the additional duties as the prime minister’s Quebec lieutenant.

“It’s an important role in federal politics and in Quebec politics — and I look forward to getting to it,” he told reporters outside Rideau Hall.

Both Miller and Lightbound praised Guilbeault for the work he did in his former role.

“I know I will be able to count on him as I go forward,” Lightbound said.

Guilbeault quit cabinet over Thursday’s memorandum of understanding with Alberta, which jointly agrees on a path forward for a new bitumen pipeline to the B.C. coast.

As part of the agreement with Alberta, Ottawa will suspend the proposed federal oil and gas emissions cap and remove Alberta's requirements under the Clean Electricity Regulations — both of which were introduced while Guilbeault was environment minister.

Carney had previously walked back other Trudeau-era environmental policies, notably suspending the consumer carbon tax on his first day as prime minister.

Guilbeault referenced several of these policies in a statement on Thursday.

“Over the past few months, several elements of the climate action plan I worked on as minister of the environment have been, or are about to be, dismantled.… In my view, these measures remain essential to our climate action plan,” he wrote.

Guilbeault is staying on as a Liberal MP.

When asked on Monday, Miller said he wasn’t worried about caucus unity in the wake of Guilbeault’s resignation.

“Mark Carney helped us win an election that I think a lot of the pollsters had us losing — we do owe him a lot,” Miller said.

Monday was the second time Carney has had to mix up his cabinet since April’s election.

Former transport and internal trade minister Chrystia Freeland left her role in September — and signalled that she has plans to leave federal politics entirely.

Carney handed the internal trade file to Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and passed the transport file to House Leader Steven Mackinnon.

Freeland held a number of cabinet positions under Trudeau, including finance. Her resignation from that role last year ultimately led to the former prime minister stepping down.

Freeland subsequently ran against Carney for the Liberal leadership and came a distant second.