Freeland to slash cabinet, PMO in half if elected leader

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OTTAWA — Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland is proposing to have a leaner and more effective team in government if she becomes Liberal leader on March 9.

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In a press release, Freeland said that she would reduce the size of the current ministerial cabinet and staff in the prime minister’s office by 50 per cent which she says will end PMO’s top-down approach and will give more power to ministers to do their work.

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The current cabinet has 38 ministers, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Freeland said she would reduce it to no more than 20 ministers, effectively slashing it in nearly half.

“A cabinet led by Chrystia Freeland will be more focused and more effective – balancing regional diversity and breadth of experience to ensure Ministers are given the space to meaningfully contribute to governing,” reads the press release.

Freeland is also promising to bring back regional ministers and ministers of state, which are junior cabinet positions meant to assist a senior cabinet minister.

For instance, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre served as minister of state for democratic reform from 2013 to 2015, before he was promoted as minister of employment on top of his democratic reform duties in the months prior to the 2015 election. He also assumed responsibility for the National Capital Commission — making him the go-to minister for the Ottawa area.

Those junior cabinet positions will not be part of the hard cap of 20 ministers she intends to respect as leader, according to Freeland’s spokeswoman Katherine Cuplinskas.

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Cuplinskas also hinted Freeland would keep Trudeau’s promise to respect gender parity in cabinet, despite it being half its current size.

“At minimum, women will have an equal voice within Chrystia Freeland’s cabinet,” she said.

The other area in which Freeland intends to cut to save taxpayer dollars if she becomes leader would be in her own office.

According to a government public directory, there were no less than 108 employees working for Trudeau until recently. For example, Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers, who was on Trudeau’s tour team, left to work for former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney in his own bid to become Liberal leader.

The sprawling team at PMO includes longtime chief of staff Katie Telford and her staff, policy advisors, an issues management team and a communications team, among others.

In slashing the number of staff members by half, Freeland appears to want to respond to longstanding frustration amongst caucus members and staffers that Trudeau’s office has become too centralized and has been spearheading most of the government’s decisions.

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She is promising to end the “overreach” of PMO and to “empower” ministers, MPs and all Canadians to “more meaningfully contribute their ideas to make our country better.”

Freeland has said in several interviews that she had been growing increasingly at odds with Trudeau’s team in the weeks before she resigned as finance minister on Dec. 16 over what she called “costly political gimmicks” — citing proposed $250 cheques for some Canadians as an example.

She said it was her view that the federal government should keep its fiscal powder dry to respond to a possible tariff war with the U.S. which could come as early as Feb. 1.

But the Conservatives are pushing back against Freeland’s apparent rebranding as a “blue Liberal” by reminding Canadians that she stood by Trudeau for nine years, serving as finance minister for four of them, and was set to present a $62 billion deficit last month.

They even have their own website JustLikeJustin.ca in which they explain why most of the leadership candidates are tied to the current prime minister. Only Ruby Dhalla, a former Liberal MP from 2004 to 2011 and businesswomen, does not appear on the website.

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On X, Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, who is endorsing Freeland and has never been named minister, said he agreed with her plan to slash the size of cabinet and PMO.

“Was wondering why so many existing cabinet ministers and insiders were supporting another candidate,” he wrote in a not so subtle shot at Carney’s many endorsements.

“Smaller, leaner cabinet and PMO. Sounds good to me.”

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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