Carney’s Quiet PS Revolution

Published 06/24/2025 · Updated 06/24/2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney isn’t pitching a sweeping public service overhaul — but his government is nudging changes to how Ottawa works.

The passage of his signature major projects bill, a wave of senior leadership moves, and a new risk policy all point to a system being quietly rewired to deliver — and faster.

Carney doesn’t appear to have a grand theory of public service reform — but change is happening anyway. The system is being reshaped piece by piece, not by design, but by the demands of what he’s trying to get done.

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By Kathryn May

Originally published in Policy Options
June 23, 2025

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“I think Carney has some things he needs to get done — and he’ll do what he has to do to change things in order to make that happen,” said one senior official not authorized to speak publicly. “But the changes are a consequence of the desire to get things done, not of some grand theory of government or public service reform.”

A major projects blueprint

The first signal in that shift came with Bill C-5 – also known as the “One Canadian Economy Act” – which passed just before the House rose for summer. The legislation, voted on in two parts, is designed to break down interprovincial trade barriers and set out how a shortlist of nation-building projects will be chosen and fast-tracked. (Think: highways, railways, ports, airports, oil pipelines, critical minerals, mines, nuclear facilities or power grids.)

The legislation lays out a blueprint for doing government differently. It aims to build in new wiring for execution, forcing bureaucrats to focus on delivery, not just compliance.

The goal is to force departments out of their silos with internal trade review; speed up project reviews, cutting decision timelines from five years to two, and introduce a “one project, one review” model to streamline assessments. Projects deemed in the national interest would be fast-tracked – marking a clear shift from box-ticking compliance to faster delivery and economic growth.

It also creates a major projects office, a single federal point of contact to help priority projects through assessment and permitting.

The government is also starting to get the people in place to implement that plan. On the same day the bill passed, Carney shuffled his senior ranks — a first wave of appointments seen as an early step in retooling the leadership to drive his top priorities. With Michael Sabia set to become Clerk of the Privy Council on July 7, more moves are widely expected.

Leadership moves to match the agenda

The departure of Jean-François Tremblay, deputy minister at Environment and Climate Change Canada, to become ambassador and permanent representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is a big loss for the federal public service.

He’s one of the most experienced deputies – and among the last still serving from the Harper era. His career moved at uncommon speed by today’s standards, with seven deputy minister roles in under two decades, including top posts at ESDC, Natural Resources, Indigenous Services, Transport, Infrastructure and, most recently, Environment.

Tremblay was known for bridging policy and operations in both social and economic portfolios. One senior official called him “the Swiss Army knife of the deputy community,” trusted with both line departments and central agencies.

Now, the baton at Environment passes to Mollie Johnson, the current deputy secretary at PCO for plans and consultations. She brings deep credentials in energy and environment, having previously worked at both Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada, where she served as associate deputy minister and as an adviser on decarbonization to Clerk of the Privy Council John Hannaford.

Environment’s core challenge is aligning climate and economic policy — rather than treating it as a choice between the two. Johnson’s appointment comes as the Carney government pushes to integrate both in a drive to build a new Canadian economy.

Earlier in her career, Johnson was director-general of NRCan’s major projects management office, created to co-ordinate large resource and infrastructure projects across departments. The office was wound down after Bill C-69 shifted project reviews to the new Impact Assessment Agency — a move critics say added layers of review and slowed approvals.

Now, under Carney, a new major projects office is being set up — this time inside PCO — with a mandate to speed up decisions and cut through red tape to deliver results faster.

At Finance — a key department for both Carney and Sabia, who each once served as a deputy minister — Alison O’Leary has been promoted to associate deputy minister, the department’s second-highest role. She moves up from leading Federal-Provincial Relations, following the departure of Suzy McDonald to head Stanstead College in Quebec.

All eyes are now on whether Sabia, as incoming clerk, will put his mark on the public service by shaking up departments central to Carney’s agenda — Finance, Infrastructure and Housing, Natural Resources, the Treasury Board, or even PCO itself, which some insiders say has become top-heavy and stretched beyond its lane. Another shuffle could land as early as this summer.

Ministers and secretaries of state without full departments — like the new portfolios for Artificial Intelligence and Nature — are getting senior public servants assigned to support them directly. It’s essentially a deputy minister-style role.

Kaili Levesque, associate deputy minister at Fisheries and Oceans, will support the secretary of state for nature. Mark Schaan, deputy secretary to the cabinet for AI at PCO, will support Evan Solomon, the first minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation.

In other moves, Nancy Hamzawi, executive vice-president at the Public Health Agency, steps up as president following Heather Jeffrey’s retirement.

A shift in risk policy signals culture change

Meanwhile, the government made another move to shake the public service out of its longstanding risk-averse, compliance-heavy culture — rolling out a new risk and compliance policy. It’s not a headline-grabber, but it marks a clear pivot: less bureaucracy, more pressure on deputy ministers to show their departments can deliver. Less box-ticking, more accountability for results.

The new policy, in the works long before the Carney government took over, replaces the 20-year-old management accountability framework (MAF) as the central tool for tracking how departments manage risk, performance, and compliance. Critics long argued MAF had become overly bureaucratic and backward-looking, adding to the reporting burden while doing little to improve outcomes.

MAF was a centrally driven audit. Treasury Board assessed departments and handed down ratings — so departments focused on looking good on paper rather than fixing real problems.

The new policy flips that model. Deputy ministers now self-assess their department’s performance, compliance, and risk exposure — and personally attest to the results. Treasury Board reviews those attestations and can follow up on any red flags. It’s a significant shift: from asking whether targets were met to managing the risks that could prevent meeting them — while still following the rules.

Kathryn May is Policy Options’ public-service reporter, covering and analyzing the complex issues facing Canada’s federal public service.

This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.