OTTAWA • Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney isn’t joining the federal Liberals, says new Trudeau government Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
The New Brunswick MP and Trudeau confidant says he’s been given assurances from the prime minister that he will remain the country’s finance minister.
“Carney is not an option,” LeBlanc said in an interview with Brunswick News.
“That discussion has concluded.”
But there will be a cabinet shuffle sometime soon.
LeBlanc says the shuffle will see him keep the finance portfolio, but relinquish his role as public safety minister.
That said, he will remain the country’s lead on the Canada-U.S. border and focus heavily on talks with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration over the looming threat of punishing tariffs.
Meanwhile, LeBlanc says there’s no indication that Trudeau is about to resign, even in the aftermath of Chrystia Freeland’s abrupt resignation and subsequent backlash from the Liberal caucus.
“I talked to him a fair bit this week and he gave no indication that he was doing anything other than working on some of the things that he and I talked about Monday: The tariff issue, border security, the incoming American administration,” LeBlanc said.
“I see absolutely no indication that he’s doing anything other than focusing on his job.”
In a wide ranging interview about the chaos of the last 48 hours, LeBlanc said he’s now in the finance role permanently.
Asked to address reports that Trudeau told Freeland that she was going to be replaced as finance minister by former central banker Mark Carney, LeBlanc moved to put the “rumours” to rest.
“It’s no longer something that is real,” LeBlanc replied.
“In my conversation with the prime minister, I’m not going to be the public safety minister for the long term,” LeBlanc said. “I will keep Intergovernmental Affairs because of the work with the premiers on the Canada-U.S. tariff issue.
“But I will also remain responsible for the border plan and border security.
“I expect there will be a new minister of public safety when there is a cabinet shuffle, but the prime minister told me that he would like me to retain a lead role in the issues around border security, and of course I will chair the Canada-U.S. cabinet committee.”
The New Brunswick MP told reporters on Tuesday evening during a press conference that he and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had already had preliminary conversation with the incoming U.S. “border czar” Tom Homan on the border plan it was now detailing to reporters.
“It was, we think, encouraging,” he said.
LeBlanc said an in-person meeting between Homan and Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick, is already in the works to happen in the next couple of weeks.
Exactly when the cabient shuffle will happen is unclear.
LeBlanc said he won’t need to be present, as it will only see him losing a file.
He returned home on Tuesday night and isn’t scheduled to return to Ottawa until next week.
That’s as he has already scheduled an announcement in Dorchester, N.B., on Thursday over a longstanding frustration of his.
The Trudeau government announced in 2018 a “state-of-the-art” psychiatric facility to replace the unsafe and outdated Shepody Healing Centre currently housed inside the walls of the existing 140-year-old prison.
But the bureaucracy of government called for planning and pre-planning on the centre to take eight years. It angered LeBlanc to the point that he had the 2023 federal budget explicitly order the centre built expeditiously.
He is now poised to ensure that the centre goes ahead with a $1 billion infusion.
LeBlanc now becomes the first federal finance minister from New Brunswick in 136 years, since Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley in 1878, who was one of the fathers of Confederation.
He’s the first Acadian ever to be appointed to the job.
How long it will last is arguably a question mark.
Brunswick News reported on Wednesday that all four New Brunswick Liberal backbench MPs – Saint John Rothesay MP Wayne Long, Madawaska-Restigouche MP René Arseneault, Acadie-Bathurst MP Serge Cormier, and now Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin – now say that they want Trudeau to resign.
That’s as the all from inside the caucus grows across the country.
“I have been part of governments before where we spent a lot of time looking inward. In the end, it’s not usually very successful,” LeBlanc said.
He later added: “I think the path forward is to focus on the urgent work ahead.
“The risk of these tariffs on the Canadian economy, to workers, to businesses big and small, is astounding.
“It behooves all of us to focus on that and other issues.”
LeBlanc continued: “There will be a budget in the spring, there will be opportunities for the opposition parties to put motions before the House either in the winter or the spring, the government can schedule those days with a certain amount of discretion, there are periods in the calendar that you have to do it.
“But everyone needs to get to work, is my view. There will be an election in 2025. It might be in the spring, it might be in the late winter if Parliament votes no confidence in the government, but 10 last week, on like 10 occasions, they voted confidence in the government.
“It’s not a scrum from an opposition leader constitutionally that changes that.”
What changed between this week and last week was the resignation of a central piece of the Trudeau government.
“Well no, the policies and the agenda of the government doesn’t evaporate because one, albeit very senior minister, leaves. No,” LeBlanc said.
“If they supported the supplementary estimates and the supply bill which is the money to operate the government, those are pure confidence votes.
“The Bloc and the NDP fully voted confidence in the government.”
He added: “Four days later to be completely outraged and say we need an election, I get the theatrics of that, fine, I’ve been an opposition MP too, but plunging the country into an election now on the eve of the presidential inauguration, the new government wouldn’t be sworn in.”