Michael Sabia, the CEO of Hydro-Québec, has been appointed Clerk of the Privy Council.Jenna Muirhead/The Globe and Mail
Mark Carney has recruited Hydro‑Québec CEO Michael Sabia to take over as the country’s top bureaucrat, installing a seasoned executive and former Trudeau government official in a role that will be key to delivering on the Prime Minister’s ambitious pledge to remake the Canadian economy.
Mr. Sabia had served as deputy minister of finance before he left Justin Trudeau’s government in 2023 to become CEO of Hydro‑Québec.
The current Clerk of the Privy Council, John Hannaford, announced Wednesday that he will be leaving his role as the head of the public service and deputy minister to the Prime Minister.
In Mr. Sabia, Mr. Carney now has a PCO clerk with government and business experience who can push through his agenda, which includes significant nation-building projects, a revamped military, major housing initiatives and cost-cutting expenditures for the public service.
The recruitment of Mr. Sabia, who takes over on July 7, adds to a team of people around the Prime Minister, including former UN ambassador Marc-André Blanchard as Mr. Carney’s new chief of staff and onetime justice minister David Lametti as his principal secretary.
The hires appear intended to send a message to the bureaucracy that major change is expected from it.
Canada has ‘ambition deficit’ and regulations that are scaring away investment, Sabia says
As president and CEO of Hydro‑Québec, Mr. Sabia signed a tentative deal with its Newfoundland counterpart to co-develop energy projects along the Churchill River. He also put together a $185-billion blueprint for new energy infrastructure that aims to wean Quebec off fossil fuels.
“Prime Minister Carney asked me to take on this role at a time when the country is facing some unprecedented challenges,” Mr. Sabia said in a statement.
“In that context, I am joining the federal government to tackle this challenge head on.”
Mr. Sabia had served as deputy minister of finance before he left Justin Trudeau’s government in 2023 to become CEO of Hydro‑Québec.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Mr. Carney noted that Mr. Sabia brings more than three decades of expertise across the public and private sectors. Aside from running Hydro‑Québec, Mr. Sabia headed the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Bell Canada Enterprises, and held senior roles at Canadian National Railway and in the Privy Council Office.
“As Canada’s new government builds the strongest economy in the G7, Mr. Sabia’s leadership will be key to this mission,” Mr. Carney said Wednesday, adding that he will help Ottawa “advance nation-building projects, catalyze enormous private investment to drive growth, and deliver the change Canadians want and deserve.”
Mr. Carney has promised the largest transformation to the Canadian economy since the Second World War.
The new government has been pushing to reposition Canada, in part by diversifying trade, after an election campaign in which tension with the United States was a central issue.
“I can’t think of a better person to be Clerk of the Privy Council than Michael Sabia,” said Donald Savoie, professor of public administration at the University of Moncton.
“He is known as a no-nonsense guy who will bring a very disciplined approach. He will not govern by committee. He will govern by decision and that is precisely what the Government of Canada needs at the moment,”
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister selected Mr. Blanchard as his chief of staff, filling a key role in his office. Mr. Blanchard, a prominent Quebec lawyer and business leader, is widely respected for his competence and level-headed judgment. He served as Canada’s ambassador to the UN from 2016 to 2020.
Mr. Carney also recruited Mr. Lametti, a close friend, as his principal secretary, to handle much of the Prime Minister’s political agenda.
Fen Hampson, chancellor’s professor at Carleton University, said Mr. Carney is “recruiting top-flight people, who know their way around Ottawa. It sends a strong message that he is getting Canada ready for business and he is getting the bureaucracy ready, too.”
He said Mr. Sabia and Mr. Blanchard have extensive experience in the private sector. This, he added, signals loudly that “there is a bottom line here and the bureaucracy is going to have to start performing.”
The PM selected former United Nations ambassador Marc-André Blanchard as his chief of staff earlier this month.Richard Drew/The Associated Press
Mr. Sabia made a forceful speech to the Canadian Club of Montreal in February, and one on Monday to a Globe and Mail conference, in which he said that Canada must think big and act now to secure its future in the face of a hostile U.S. government that risks isolating itself amid a global transition toward cleaner energy.
“We have an ambition deficit,” Mr. Sabia told The Globe conference, saying Ottawa must get rid of regulations that block foreign investment and find new sources of capital to fund major projects.
In February, Mr. Sabia said President Donald Trump has ushered in an era of “radical unpredictability” with threats of tariffs against Canada and other allies.
“Trump wants to break our confidence. My response: ‘No way,’ ” Mr. Sabia said. “We cannot wait and let others decide the rules of the game for us.”
The recruitment of Mr. Sabia and Mr. Blanchard marks a return of sorts to a policy push put forward in the early days of Mr. Trudeau’s government that never fully met the ambition of its original promise.
That push had a central focus: encouraging large institutional investors such as pension funds to spend more of their money in Canada on major infrastructure projects.
Mr. Sabia was a key member of then-finance minister Bill Morneau’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which produced three detailed reports in 2016 and 2017 with proposals on how to boost economic growth in areas such as infrastructure, foreign investment and attracting skilled immigrants.
Christopher Ragan, an associate professor of economics at McGill who worked with Mr. Sabia as a member of the advisory council, said his “tremendous combination of experiences” make him an ideal choice to work with Mr. Carney.
“I first met Michael Sabia on the growth council, and it doesn’t take very long before you realize that this guy is whip smart,” he said in an interview. “He’s got the whole package.”
Prof. Ragan said that in his view, the best way to attract international investment in Canada is to remove barriers like cumbersome review timelines.
“My sense is pension-fund managers from around the world, they’ll invest in Canada when there’s something good to invest in,” he said. “I think we’re now starting to talk about that in a very realistic way, and we weren’t, you know, four years ago.”
The advisory council’s main policy recommendations included the creation of a Canada Infrastructure Bank, increasing annual immigration to Canada from 300,000 to 450,000 and prioritizing growth in specific sectors, such as agri-food and advanced manufacturing.
The Trudeau government went further on immigration, raising the target to 500,000, before announcing in the fall of 2024 that it would be scaling back in future years.
There were also issues with the implementation of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which was established in 2017 with a $35-billion budget. It was slow to identify projects and deliver on its initial mandate.
With reports from Nicolas Van Praet