Canada Minute: Issue 78

Canada Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Canadian politics.

📅 This Week In Canada: 📅

• Prime Minister Mark Carney has nominated Manitoba Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal to the Supreme Court of Canada, filling the seat left vacant when Justice Sheilah Martin retired on May 30th. Joyal has spent more than 25 years on the bench across all three levels of court in Manitoba, including as chief justice since 2011, and previously practised criminal, constitutional, and civil law. Recommendations for the Court, which has nine judges including a chief justice, come from an independent, non-partisan advisory board that submits a merit-based shortlist to the Prime Minister, and candidates must be functionally bilingual in English and French, a requirement since 2016. The vacant seat was open to candidates from Western or Northern Canada under the convention of regional representation. Joyal had put his name forward once before, in 2017, but later withdrew. He is scheduled to take part in a question-and-answer session before a parliamentary committee on Monday as part of the appointment process. A University of Manitoba law professor described the nomination as a "superb choice", citing Joyal's qualifications and work ethic.
  
  
• Six MPs say they intend to resign over the summer, shifting party standings in the House of Commons and putting the Liberals' majority under scrutiny. Two MPs resigned officially on Friday, a day after the House rose for its summer recess, with Liberal Jonathan Wilkinson leaving to become Canada's ambassador to the European Union and former Bloc Québécois MP Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay preparing to run provincially in Quebec. Once an MP resigns, the Speaker notifies the chief electoral officer, after which Prime Minister Mark Carney has between 11 and 180 days to call a by-election, and the Government has tended to schedule several at once. The Liberals, who reached majority status after three by-elections in April, will sit at 170 seats when the House returns in late September against a combined opposition of 166. Because of how the vacant seats are distributed, the Liberals would still hold more votes than the opposition, even below the usual majority threshold. The only way they could slip back into a minority is by losing all six by-elections, and winning at least one would preserve a technical majority. Voting days are expected sometime in November or December, in part to avoid overlapping with Quebec's provincial election.
  
  
• The federal public service has shrunk by well over 12,000 workers in 2026, falling to about 345,000 employees across Canada as of late March, according to updated figures from the Treasury Board Secretariat. The workforce peaked in 2024 at just under 368,000 before dropping by roughly 10,000 in 2025 and by more than 12,000 this year. As part of the 2025 budget, Prime Minister Mark Carney's government pledged to cut the workforce by 4.5%, or 16,000 jobs, within three years, noting that it had grown faster than Canada's population. The broader plan aims to bring the public service down to around 330,000 employees by the end of the 2029 fiscal year. In the Ottawa-Gatineau region, which holds the largest concentration of federal employees, the count fell from 154,000 to about 146,000, a decrease of around 5%. The Government says the target reflects typical turnover, retirements, and voluntary departures rather than forced reductions.
  
  
• Rideau Hall has revised its guidelines so that Governors General can only be reimbursed for "distinct wardrobe requirements" needed to represent the monarch and country, such as formal, black-tie, or ceremonial occasions, and no longer for everyday casual or business attire. The change was set at the start of incoming Governor General Arbour's mandate and was sent to MPs on a parliamentary committee, after years of scrutiny over itemized clothing lists that Conservatives, who requested them, called lavish. Governors General can currently expense a maximum of $130,000 over five years, an allowance already cut by 35% during a 2021 review and now under further review. Documents tabled in Parliament show former Governor General Mary Simon charged more than $45,000 for clothing in just under four years, while her predecessor Julie Payette spent more than $50,000 in just over three years. Some purchases were tied to specific events, but roughly 50 of more than 100 of Simon's items listed no event, including grey crepe pants and a burgundy skirt. The Governor General's 2026 salary is $393,800.
  
  
• The federal government has launched a national design-and-build competition to restore and modernize 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of the prime minister, which has been uninhabitable for more than a decade due to years of deferred maintenance. The competition is open to Canadian firms, with the winning proposal set to be announced on Canada Day 2027, and the selected team will oversee both the design and construction of the project. To reduce the burden on taxpayers, the Rideau Hall Foundation will lead a fundraising campaign, with individual donations capped and publicly disclosed, although the overall project cost has not yet been determined. Heritage groups welcomed the announcement, while Conservatives questioned the timing, arguing it was intended to distract from the federal government's recent housing policy. The historic residence, built in the late 1860s, has housed 10 prime ministers but has been vacant since 2015 after extensive deterioration led to its closure and decommissioning.
  
  

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