Looking for change in the Trudeau Cabinet Shuffle

Patrick Gossage • July 31, 2023

Like many avid Trudeau watchers, I am puzzled by his recent cabinet shuffle purporting to represent an energized team that will propel Canada forward and is designed to win the next election against increasing odds. This while the polls show that all the public wants is real change. For me it shows a very self-confident, even cocky Prime Minister convinced that continuing his activist positive social spending agenda will prove persuasive to voters in the next election.

When a former PMO heavy like Brooke Malinoski weighs in on the shuffle as she did recently in The Star, I pay attention since clearly the PMO election-ready staff had a key role in picking the seven new Ministers.  Here is her take: “Recent polling suggests that Canadians are starting to see the Conservatives as the party best suited to address issues of affordability, a topic that was Trudeau’s bread-and-butter in 2015 when he won his majority, as we heard over the course of the campaign, with the support of the ‘middle class and those working hard to join it.’” This is typical PMO – never give up a good slogan however worn. 


In this excerpt, she reveals what is obviously the PMO strategy in the shuffle:  “He and his team know what it takes to win campaigns, and this is an election-ready cabinet. If it was not clear that the Prime Minister was gearing up for a fight in the next election, it certainly is now.”

With the PM promoting the same major policy approaches and major economic Ministers including the Finance Minister remain unchanged, it is difficult to see where the kind of change will come that Canadians are demanding.


Much rests on the young shoulders of Maritimer Sean Fraser, the new Minister of Housing and Infrastructure. In early interviews he talked about introducing new models of affordable housing in his own riding. If he were to get the feds back in the housing business in a meaningful way like in the seventies, it would be dramatic and impactful. That Infrastructure is also his responsibility may herald a more comprehensive approach to the housing issue that most troubles Canadians. But that would seem to be it for the possibility of change in the redesign.


Trudeau showed his toughness in this shuffle, ditching well-performing Ministers like Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti,  and moving  high profile Defence Minister Anita Anand to the low-profile Treasury Board. 


One can also see the hand of the highly centralized and powerful PMO staff in the choice of the junior newcomers more likely to tow the line than to step out and innovate on their own. There had been rumors that Anand early in her defense role dared independently suggest that military spending would rise to 2% of GDP which thoroughly annoyed the PMO. The PMO is very surprise averse, even change averse. 


When I was at the PMO in the pre-1979 election runup, caucus started to become restless about the apparent inordinate power of Jim Coutts and our then PMO. I assure you that the degree of control over Ministers was nothing compared to now when Ministers’ Chiefs of Staff are appointed by the PMO, blurring lines of responsibility and allowing breakdowns in communication, like the Bernardo debacle. With this shuffle leaving out many who could be considered more suitable caucus candidates, similar rumblings were inevitable. This was duly reported by The Star who had one MP saying tongue in cheek that the shuffle should have removed Trudeau’s Chief of Staff, Katie Telford.


So, we will watch as a generous Trudeau government continues “to have the back” of Canadians doling out huge grocery rebates to eleven million citizens, increasing child and GST tax credits, increasing the scope of dental care coverage, and adding to the list the potential of pharma care. Recently, the Minister of Finance announced new worker benefits which could mean up to $2,616 for eligible families. This received almost no coverage. An earlier $500  payment for low-income earners for rent did. This seemingly endless largesse will hopefully win our attention and voters’ support. 


This is Trudeau’s continuing strategy, and he and his people are counting on the Leader of the Opposition being a foil to all this active help for economically pressed households. Very few political observers doubt that in an election campaign, and particularly in debates, Trudeau can take down the easily quoted Poilievre. 


It remains to be seen if Trudeau can upgrade his own style and image which attract such negative reactions from so many Canadians. Short of dramatic new policies which now appear unlikely, real change may have to come from the man himself. This is awfully hard to foresee. 

Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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