These newly elected Liberal MPs from the business world are contenders for cabinet

Many of the newly elected Liberal members of Parliament boast impressive business credentials, making them strong contenders for a coveted position in the next federal cabinet. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press The Liberal Party of Canada has won its fourth consecutive mandate , but there will be several new faces on the government benches when the House of Commons resumes. Many of those rookie Liberal members of Parliament boast impressive business credentials, making them strong contenders for a coveted position in the next federal cabinet.

Chief among them is Tim Hodgson, who won in a suburban Toronto riding after a lifetime in high finance, including a stint advising then-Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney . The list of neophyte Grit MPs also includes a former Quebec finance minister, a veteran diplomat, a former president of IBM Canada and an internationally trained lawyer with an Oxford MBA. Mr.



Carney will face pressure to further renew the ministerial ranks, since his party has been in power for the past decade. As a newbie MP himself, the Prime Minister is expected to draw on the political expertise of veteran MPs with previous cabinet experience such as François-Philippe Champagne, Chrystia Freeland, Mélanie Joly, Anita Anand, Dominic LeBlanc and Bill Blair. Decisions will have to be made quickly, as Mr.

Carney is widely expected to name his new cabinet within two weeks, with plans to introduce a new budget before Canada Day. Tim Hodgson The newly elected member of Parliament for Markham-Thornhill has easily the most Bay Street experience of anyone in the new Liberal caucus. In March, Mr.

Hodgson took a leave of absence as chair of the board of directors at Ontario utility giant Hydro One to run in the 2025 election. He also had to step away from the board of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, where he was vice-chair of the investment committee. He has served on too many boards to name, but his corporate governance experience followed decades of hands-on financial management.

He spent the mid-1980s as a chartered accountant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Winnipeg while also serving as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. He worked at Goldman Sachs for 15 years before becoming CEO of the Wall Street titan’s Canadian operations in 2005. He left in 2010 to spend 18 months as a special adviser to Mr.

Carney when he was governor of the Bank of Canada. Claude Guay The former president of IBM Canada defeated Bloc Québécois MP Louis-Philippe Sauvé to win his Montreal seat. Despite his business bona fides – Mr.

Guay spent a dozen years with IBM, including as global managing partner of its venture capital arm – any cabinet position for him would likely raise hackles with the federal public service. Ottawa contracted IBM during Mr. Guay’s tenure with the company for the problem-riddled Phoenix pay system, which according to the Investigative Journalism Foundation, has garnered IBM $784-million in federal money to fix even though the initial contract was worth just $6-million.

In 2017, Mr. Guay acknowledged in an interview that there were “things we could do better.” Carlos Leitão The former Quebec finance minister under Premier Philippe Couillard and newly elected MP for the Laval riding of Marc-Aurèle-Fortin has decades of experience in the banking sector.

He was an economist at the Royal Bank of Canada from 1983 to 2003. Before entering provincial politics in 2014, he spent a decade as chief economist of Laurentian Bank Securities. Louis Villeneuve The experience of the new MP for Brome-Missisquoi lies mostly in local government.

He was mayor of Bromont for nearly eight years and was a local councillor for four years before that. Prior to entering elected office, Mr. Villeneuve ran his own entertainment company – Octopus Productions – for 14 years.

Caroline Desrochers The newly elected MP for Trois-Rivières is also new to Parliament but has already built a career in government service. Her years working at the Canadian Embassy to Haiti, the Consulate General of Canada in New York and, most recently, as deputy chief transformation officer at Global Affairs Canada makes her a contender for a cabinet post related to trade or foreign relations. Wade Chang One of the few new faces in the Liberal caucus from Western Canada, the incoming MP for Burnaby Central who unseated NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has an impressive résumé.

Boasting a law degree from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from Oxford, Mr. Chang moved to Canada from Taiwan as a teenager. Before the 2025 election, he was a global legal consultant with the West Coast boutique law firm Lextegic.

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