Cabinet Qs – iPolitics

Good evening to you and happy Friday!

Prime Minister Mark Carney will officially be sworn-in alongside his new cabinet next Tuesday during a ceremony supervised by Governor General Mary Simon.

Carney had previously said the swearing-in would take place sometime next week, but the Tuesday morning ceremony was confirmed by a media advisory released by Rideau Hall on Friday.

Per the advisory, the ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m. ET.

It will be Carney’s second trip to the governor general’s residence this year, as he also appointed a cabinet shortly after he won the Liberal leadership in March. Carney’s first cabinet featured 23 ministers, marking a significant decrease from the 37 ministers included in Justin Trudeau’s final cabinet.

The prime minister has also committed to upholding the policy of a gender-balanced cabinet, which was first introduced by Trudeau in 2015.

Davis Legree has that story.

And speaking of the new cabinet, obviously, it remains to be seen who lands where and, with a crop of freshly-elected rookies, whether any familiar faces will be dropped altogether.

Several open questions have seized the Ottawa political bubble, like will François-Philippe Champagne stay in the finance portfolio?

Champagne had previously spent four years as industry minister before Carney gave him the finance portfolio in March. Should Carney decide to shuffle Champagne out of finance, he would become the shortest-serving finance minister in Canadian history, excluding those who only held the role in an ‘acting’ capacity.

During his time as industry minister, Champagne built a reputation as a hard-working networker with an ability to forge strong relationships with businesses across the globe. He’s affectionately known in political circles as ‘Frankie bubbles’ and ‘the Energizer bunny’ because of sunny disposition and seemingly endless energy.

However, some Liberal insiders question whether Champagne is best-suited to stay as finance minister.

Legree explores that debate, along with the other lingering questions ahead of Carney’s visit to Rideau Hall next week, like whether every province will be represented and what he will decide to do with Chrystia Freeland. 

In other news,Canada’s manufacturing sector shedded thousands of jobs last month in the face of costly tariffs from the U.S., intensifying demands for new supports for business and workers impacted by the trade war.

The Canadian economy added 7,400 jobs last month, the agency said, slightly outpacing economist expectations for a gain of 2,500 positions. But the unemployment rate also rose two tenths of a percentage point in April, topping economists’ call for a jobless rate of 6.8 per cent.

At 6.9 per cent, the unemployment rate is back at its recent high seen in November. Before then, the jobless rate had not hit that level since January 2017, outside the pandemic years.

While the economy did add jobs in April, the rising unemployment rate suggests employers were not hiring as quickly as Canada’s population was growing.

And while some sectors were adding bodies, Statistics Canada said the country lost 31,000 manufacturing jobs in April, with the bulk of the impact in Ontario.

The hit came after the United States imposed tariffs starting in March on non-CUSMA compliant imports from Canada as well as sector-specific levies on steel and aluminum and automobiles.

Manufacturing-heavy Windsor, Ont., saw its unemployment rate jump 1.4 percentage points to 10.7 per cent last month.

Marco Vigliotti reports. 

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Pope Leo XIV said Friday that his election was both a cross to bear and a blessing as he celebrated his first mass and details began to emerge of how votes swiftly coalesced to make him history’s first American pope.

Freed from their conclave, cardinals began describing the days and hours leading up to the final ballot Thursday afternoon that brought Leo past the two-thirds majority needed. Many marvelled that the Chicago-born Augustinian missionary Robert Prevost reached the threshold so quickly, given the vast diversity of voters and the traditional taboo against a U.S. pope because of the secular power the country wields.

“It is a miracle of the Holy Spirit,” said Cardinal Fernando Natalio Chomalí Garib, archbishop of Santiago, Chile. He noted that 133 men who barely knew one another from 70 countries came to an agreement in just over 24 hours. A miracle, he said, “and also an example for all our countries where nobody comes to an agreement.”

Leo presided over his first mass before those same cardinal electors Friday morning, speaking off-the-cuff in English in the Sistine Chapel.

AP has more on that. 

Meanwhile, a half-ton Soviet spacecraft that never made it to Venus 53 years ago is expected to fall back to Earth this weekend.

Built to land on the solar system’s hottest planet, the titanium-covered spacecraft may survive its fiery, uncontrolled plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, predicted to occur on Saturday. But experts said it likely would come down over water, covering most of the world, or a desolate region.

The odds of it slamming into a populated area are “infinitesimally small,” said University of Colorado Boulder scientist Marcin Pilinski.

AP also has those details. 

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

More playoff hockey action tonight, as the Toronto Maple Leafs could go up 3-0 in their second round series against the Florida Panthers.

Wait, is that right? Let me double check that quickly.

…

Wow! Yes, we can confirm that the Leafs are, in fact, in the second round and won the first two games of the series.

What a world.

In other news, the Winnipeg Jets, also known as Canada’s team, can even their series against the Dallas Stars tonight.

And with that, have a good weekend, and we’ll see you tomorrow…