Dear Colleagues:
Last month, Canadians elected a new Government to stand up for our country and to build a strong economy that works for everyone. As members of the 30th Ministry, we must fulfill this mandate with purpose and force. We must meet a series of unprecedented challenges with both a disciplined focus on core priorities and new approaches to governing.
The Context: A Generational Challenge
Canada faces a series of crises. In a more dangerous and divided world, geopolitical risks are rising, threatening our sovereignty. The global trading system – which has helped power Canada’s prosperity for decades – is undergoing the biggest transformation since the fall of the Berlin Wall. At home, our longstanding weak productivity is straining government finances, making life less affordable for Canadian families, and threatening to undermine the sustainability of vital social programs on which Canadians rely.
The new federal Government has an immense responsibility to address these challenges head on with focus, determination, and fundamentally different approaches to governing.
We must redefine Canada’s international, commercial, and security relationships. In the process, we need to develop a defence industrial policy that secures Canada, fulfills our responsibilities to our allies, and helps build our economy.
Canada must build an enormous amount of new infrastructure at speeds not seen in generations. This includes the infrastructure to diversify our trading relationships; to become an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energies; to restore affordability to housing; and to secure our borders and our communities.
The combination of the scale of this infrastructure build and the transformative nature of artificial intelligence (AI) will create opportunities for millions of Canadians to find new rewarding careers – provided they have timely access to the education and training they need to develop the necessary skills.
Government itself must become much more productive by deploying AI at scale, by focusing on results over spending, and by using scarce tax dollars to catalyse multiples of private investment.
Our Priorities
We will focus on seven priorities:
- Establishing a new economic and security relationship with the United States and strengthening our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world.
- Building one Canadian economy by removing barriers to interprovincial trade and identifying and expediting nation-building projects that will connect and transform our country.
- Bringing down costs for Canadians and helping them to get ahead.
- Making housing more affordable by unleashing the power of public-private cooperation, catalysing a modern housing industry, and creating new careers in the skilled trades.
- Protecting Canadian sovereignty and keeping Canadians safe by strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces, securing our borders, and reinforcing law enforcement.
- Attracting the best talent in the world to help build our economy, while returning our overall immigration rates to sustainable levels.
- Spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in the people and businesses that will build the strongest economy in the G7.
Working Together
We must deliver for Canadians as a team committed to real Cabinet government. The attainment of these objectives will require collaboration and coordination within Cabinet. I expect each Cabinet committee, led by their Chair, to drive and monitor our progress, with oversight from the Priorities, Planning and Strategy Committee, and direction from the full Cabinet.
While fulfilling your core responsibilities as a member of the Ministry, you should identify how specifically you can contribute to these missions. You will be expected and empowered to lead, and to bring new ideas, clear focus, and decisive action to your work. Over the coming weeks, I will look to each of you to identify the key goals and measures of success on which to evaluate the results you will achieve for Canadians as a member of the Ministry.
We will work together with Parliamentarians and the public service. We will work in true partnership with provinces, territories, and Indigenous Peoples. And we will bring together labour, business, and civil society to build a Canada worthy of our children and grandchildren.
In addressing the tasks before us, we must remain true to Canadian values. Canada is a dynamic country that celebrates our diversity, cares for the most vulnerable among us, and strives for a better future for all. The new federal Government will continue the vital work of advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. We will fight climate change. We will uphold the rule of law, protect our democratic institutions, and reinforce the unity of our country.
Canada’s challenges are not small, but we can more than meet them with vigour and a constructive approach. That is how Canadians have built the best country in the world. That is how we will build it to be even better.
In partnership,
The Rt. Hon. Mark Carney,
Prime Minister of Canada
