ADAMS: My Thoughts and Concerns with Carney's Cabinet

Carney’s Cabinet Blinked—and It’s the Wrong Kind of Familiar

Prime Minister Mark Carney stands at a podium outside Rideau Hall, with his newly appointed cabinet posed proudly behind him. Photo credit: Mark Carney, X

Yesterday morning, Mark Carney stood in front of the cameras at Rideau Hall, shook a few hands, smiled just enough, and officially became an elected prime minister. Then came the cabinet reveal—a shuffle the Liberals pitched as bold, ambitious, generational. But what I saw was a warm glass of milk and a nod to the usual suspects.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. A standalone Ministry for Women and Gender Equality? That should’ve been standard a decade ago, so I’m glad it’s here now. Melanie Joly moving from Foreign Affairs to Economic Development? Fine. Not a demotion, not a promotion. Just a better lane for her strengths.

Anita Anand stepping in as Foreign Affairs Minister? I’m watching that closely. That’s a curveball. But a good one. But then I got to the housing file. And my stomach turned.

Gone is Nathaniel Erskine-Smith—a Housing Minister who actually showed up with a plan and a backbone. In his place? Gregor Robertson, the former Vancouver mayor who presided over one of the steepest climbs in urban homelessness in the country.

In 2008, when Robertson took office in Vancouver, there were 1,576 people officially counted as homeless. When he left in 2018, that number had ballooned to 2,181. A 38% spike. And that’s just what got counted. If you were in Vancouver during that time, you didn’t need a census report to know the city was spiralling.

So now he’s the guy tasked with running the Build Canada Homes initiative? The national housing push I—and so many others—voted for?

Let me be blunt: this is a bad appointment.

Nate Erskine-Smith expresses disappointment on X about being excluded from cabinet despite running to help solve the housing crisis. Photo credit:

Nate Erskine-Smith

I didn’t just vote Liberal this time. I did so because I believed, maybe for the first time in my life as a young person, that the housing file was finally in the right hands. Nate Erskine-Smith brought urgency. He brought lived experience as a man who himself grew up in community housing. He understood that housing isn’t just a market to stimulate. It’s a roof over your head. It’s safety. It’s stability. It’s dignity.

He posted on X the afternoon after the cabinet announcement, and if you read between the lines, you could see the disappointment bleeding through every sentence:

“I ran again because of the opportunity to make an even bigger difference around the cabinet table and to help fix the housing crisis. I’m not back in any role, unfortunately, so it may not surprise you to learn that it’s been a strange day on my end.”

“It’s impossible not to feel disrespected and the way it played out doesn't sit right. But I’m mostly disappointed that my team and I won’t have the chance to build on all we accomplished with only a short runway.”

“Our ambitious housing plan is bigger than one person, of course. I wish the new minister well and hope we’ll see fast action to unleash the market, double down on building community housing, address chronic homelessness, and treat housing as a home first (and investment 2nd).”

You’re not imagining that sting. It’s real.

And it doesn’t stop there. Karina Gould—another progressive force, snubbed from cabinet too. Meanwhile, folks like Sean Fraser and Chrystia Freeland keep floating on untouched, like driftwood in a tide that never really turns. But the loudest omission wasn’t who got shuffled—it’s who didn’t show up at all.

There is no Minister of Labour.

Not temporarily. Not pending. Just… nothing. And that should make every worker in this country furious. Postal workers might be headed for a strike in a few weeks. It’s going to be one of the first real tests for this new government. And we already know how this story plays out if nobody steps in with actual courage.

Here’s how it goes: management drags their feet, workers hold the line, the press characterizes it as “disruption,” and the government ducks behind back-to-work legislation like it’s a shield made of pure cowardice. We’ve seen it before. From Harper. From Trudeau. And now, if Carney doesn’t name a good Labour Minister fast, we’ll see it again from his government too.

No Minister of Labour sends a message. It says: “We’ll deal with you later.” It says: “Workers aren’t our priority.” And in 2025, with costs soaring, automation rising, and burnout becoming a baseline, that kind of silence isn’t just tone-deaf. It’s dangerous.

So where does that leave people like me? People who voted for vision. For action. For a government that doesn’t just rearrange the furniture and call it transformation.

It leaves us holding our breath.

I’m not here to write anyone off on day one. But this cabinet doesn’t scream change. It whispers continuity in the worst possible way. It says: don’t rock the boat. And if the Liberals think that’s good enough to hold their coalition together, they’re in for a rude awakening. Because if this is how they treat the people who actually moved the housing file forward—if this is how they treat workers, unions, the folks getting squeezed—then they’re not just risking their base. They’re losing it.