Ottawa-area MPs McGuinty, MacKinnon take up new roles in Carney’s cabinet

Ottawa South MP David McGuinty will be the new minister of national defense.Article content

Two MPs in the National Capital Region will be taking up new roles in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet, which was revealed on Tuesday.

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Ottawa South MP David McGuinty will be the new minister of national defence, replacing Bill Blair. McGuinty was previously the minister of public safety in former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.

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Gatineau MP Steven MacKinnon will serve as the leader of the government in the House of Commons. He was previously the minister of jobs and families under the first Carney cabinet.

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McGuinty has been a Liberal MP for Ottawa South since 2004 and has consistently won more than 40 per cent of the vote in each election since. The long-time MP hadn’t been a minister before Trudeau included him in cabinet in December, 2024.

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Before he was the public safety minister, he served as the Chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and member of the Joint Inter-parliamentary Council.

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McGuinty was an early supporter of Carney in the Liberal leadership race to replace Trudeau. In February, when Carney was still just a candidate to lead the party, McGuinty told the Ottawa Citizen that the former governor of the Bank of Canada was the right person for the time.

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Given the threats being lobbed by U.S. President Donald Trump, McGuinty said the country needed someone to guide it through “turbulent waters.”

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“We need a serious prime minister and serious leadership, and I think that that’s what (Carney) represents. In a quiet and a thoughtful and authentic way,” he said at the time.

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Gatineau MP Steven MacKinnon will serve as leader of the government in the House of Commons. Photo by Tony Caldwell /PostmediaArticle content

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MacKinnon has been a Liberal MP for Gatineau since 2015. He served as the leader of the government in the House of Commons from January to March of this year. He took over from Karina Gould in that role when she ran for the Liberal leadership. MacKinnon was also the minister of employment, workforce development and labour as well as the minister of labour and seniors under the Trudeau government.

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Following the 2021 federal election, Trudeau tapped MacKinnon to be chief government whip but he wasn’t made a full member of cabinet until 2024.

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MacKinnon has been a supporter of a controversial a sixth bridge connecting Ottawa and Gatineau. The bridge, which is set to be built over Kettle Island, is expected to extend from Autoroute Parkway at Montée Paiement in Gatineau to Highway 417 at the Aviation Parkway in Ottawa.